Adam Torres and Irina Proskurina discuss PR.
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Show Notes:
In this episode, Adam Torres and Irina Proskurina, Founder and CEO at E-PR Online inc. Explore PR and AI.
Watch Full Interview:
About Irina Proskurina
Irina is the CEO and founder of E-PR Online, a public relations and digital marketing platform with 15000 media in 137 countries, specialized in personal brand and business strategy development. With an MBA in Business Marketing and experience working with top brands, she helps clients grow their brand, increase engagement, optimize SEO, and establish a strong media presence worldwide.
About E-PR online inc.
E-PR Online — a forward-thinking digital PR agency based in New York. E-PR Online is a cutting-edge platform that offers exclusive access to international media.
With their platform, they offer the client publications that will appear first on Google Search and Google News. E-PR has quick and inexpensive services that benefit anyone looking for advertising, as they will expand their online brand through media exposure.
As the client, you can choose media publications based on your budget, geographic location, language, and topic. From start to finish, E-PR takes care of everything. They create the content and then publish it for you — they take the work off of your hands and into the hands of their professional team
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today I am live in Santa Monica, California for the AI Vibes event that Tal Navarro and her team hosted. It’s been an amazing event, and I just saw Irina Proskurina speaking, and she spoke on AI and PR, and hey, for all of our entrepreneurs and executives that are listening, I had to get her on the show.
So, Irina, first off, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. So AI PR, we’re going to get into this, but first off, just this amazing event, AI Vibes. How you like the event? I love the event and I am a friend of Tal and we met in New York where I’m from and she’s amazing. And she mentioned that she’s going to have this event.
And I said, listen, I’m starting my career as a speaker as well. Me being a CEO and founder of EPR online, and we’re doing digital PR. So I would like to introduce people to my company and help people and bring value because when somebody go into traditional PR, they charge like a container feed with the contract for a year and for small medium businesses, nearly impossible, you know, to handle this amount of money.
So we build the digital platform where we collect 17, 000 media and In 137 countries. So anybody who have any budget can go and manage their own PR campaign. Thanks to our platform. You choose country, language, and your niche. And there is open catalog and you just buy it from like directly, you know? Now, now you’re a founder.
Were you always an entrepreneur? Like, was that always something you had in you? Yes. I am a multi series entrepreneur. I used to have a modeling agency called Forma Models because I used to be a model myself, like a while ago. And then I opened the modeling agency. And so I was running this business until COVID in COVID, you know, nobody needed models and I realized that I need the digital business, so probably this is the future and that’s how EPR was born.
What was your first business? Go further back, like go further back. Do you remember? Like, what was the first one? I sold my bicycle. Oh, did you? Well, how many? That’s not a business unless you sold more than one. Like serious business. Yes. The modeling agency. So yeah. What was the kid business? Did you have kid business?
Always give me a kid one. I want to collect in a plastic bottles and I was giving it away and you don’t make some money. I used to live in a close to the factory and you supposed to bring chicken from one place to another. And that’s how you made money, you know? And, yeah. That’s like, I did everything, you know, like that just come natural.
Did it come from somebody? Like, what was the influence? Did you just know in front of family? Very, you know, average people. Like I mean, I love my parents. I was just born like this. Yes. What keeps you kind of going forward? Like you had, obviously you had a little bit of a pivot and stuff, so it doesn’t have to be anything as extreme as COVID, but just in general, what motivates you?
What keeps you going forward? Well, I believe that a self progress, that’s why we all born and that’s what we need to do. And me now being a mother of two small children, it’s definitely motivates me, you know, to set an example. Well, three children, because you have your business, so. Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.
Two dogs. Everybody under my roof, you know, I have to take care of everybody. You’re not busy. No. Not enough. No, no, no, you are. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s, and also, you know, I love to listen. To a motivational podcast. That’s why I like I love what you do, you know, you’re doing great stuff. Yeah. Like, this is, this is really needed today for society and even to if somebody listens to me right now.
Yeah. And I’m an immigrant from Russia in us, you know, running my own business, having family, all this stuff. So, inspiring. Inspiring. And if I inspire somebody, I would be happy. Mm-Hmm. You know, if I, you know, inspired somebody. So when I listen to somebody. Who been through some difficulties and, and made it and strong enough to to be here and to, to make a world a better place.
That’s motivates me. Yes, definitely. So your pivot from obviously modeling the model agency to to PR. Now, when I think about, and we just met, so I’m not gonna, you correct me if I’m wrong, but you had, so when you were modeling in that part of your life, you saw the power of PR, you saw what it can do for brands.
You saw it on another level that let’s say that the business owner that watches this, maybe they’re like, do I need PR? Do I like that’s for the athletes. That’s for the models. That’s for the, this is the, that. But you saw the power of it. Yeah. So when you decided like what was going to be your next thing, digital, digital is broad.
You could have did a lot of things. What drew you to that field? I graduate MBA in New York and I start working as a chief marketing officer for sometimes in a big fashion brand. And I was hiring those traditional PR agencies and I saw that they were And you’re like, what? You’re like, what? Come on.
And I decided that You’re like, you don’t know where I’m from. Yeah. I don’t like I’ll show you, right? Like, you don’t know who you’re talking to. Yeah. Go ahead, please. So, a small and medium businesses, a lot of small, medium business, they deserve to be in line. Absolutely. They deserve, they doing great job, you know, like they really bring value and just because they don’t have enough budget doesn’t mean that they don’t, you know, deserve to be in the digital presence.
So I was thinking I need to show them and educate them how powerful it is because end of the day, every business, they need sales. And how do you get sales because of your publicity, you know, you need, people need to know about you, even if you are a coffee shop, people need to know that there is a coffee shop around the corner.
And, you know, like if I Google like. Coffee shop near me. It needs to appear in Google and, and we all use Google, you know, like the near me search. Not everybody does the near me search, not. No, no. I’ve had a couple of friends where I’m like, I’m in there. So online, I’m like, no, you can actually buy things in person.
Look, go near me and it’ll show a different search. Plus, you know, like if we talk about coffee shop, for example, isn’t it nice to get a book, to go to the coffee shop, to sit, to breathe in there, to read your book, to drink a coffee, right? Like that’s. That’s something about it. And then they have like good reviews, you know, they have a good reputation is like invest in your reputation.
That’s in plus it’s article stays online forever. So if the small business dedicate some budget and invest in some PR, it’s going to stay there forever. And plus we place all the contacts of the business, you know, like if, you know, I read about something and I like the business, then I just follow the contacts and I buy from them, not from the competitors because competitors didn’t do some PR.
So yeah, PR is very powerful. It’s a fourth what is it? A power in the U. S. Yeah. Yeah. And in the world, I mean. How, how does AI play into this? Like some of the things that you, especially that I heard in your speech, like, how does AI play into this? So on my speech, I was talking about fake news, a lot of fake news, AI generated fake news and fraudsters use fake websites to generate some revenue.
And this revenue goes directly to, to them, you know, so even the, one of the biggest agencies that. regulate all the news called newsguards they detect over 1000 fake websites already, you know, so how EPR can contribute and help. We build a team of prompt engineer copywriters and to ensure that the text is filtered.
checked by human before before it goes to the internet and it still maintain the speed, but the quality is much better than if it’s just AI generated. How does that work with the like when you’re bringing on somebody new, you’re getting to know their story or otherwise, like how does that piece of it work?
Like, is there any kind of like tools or resources for them there? Like if we have a new client, you mean? Yeah, like the business owners. Yeah, so business owners come and we do like strategic session. I, I can, I can. Please tell me all your pain, you know, like low sales or like less publicity or whatever, like, what do you feel like, what is bothering you?
And he said, this, this and that. I said, okay, let’s do ABCD. So we have a plan and then we proceed. So I give a copywriter, copywriter make an article, the client doing proofreading and everything is ready. We take some pictures, we send to media, boom, you know, next day he Google himself. He’s this. Start on the first page of Google.
Yeah. Yeah. What excites you about PR right now? Whether it’s technology stories, otherwise, like you’re, you have a unique vantage point because you’re in front of a lot of, you know, people, a lot of businesses, a lot of things. So you get to kind of see the flow. What excites you right now in PR? I love my clients.
I mean, imagine like having PR, everybody needs PR and you, every day you talk to people with different businesses and that’s excites me because you know, it’s, it’s a real story. One day church order from us, next day sex shop order from us. Yeah, you know, like this is like, you don’t know what’s going to happen.
And everybody has their own unique story because when you do PR, like you need to know about the founder, you know, you need to know about the, how the business was created, you know, like you, you take an interviews and this is like same as you, right? Like you take an interviews from different people and it’s like, It’s exciting to hear everybody’s stories, right?
Like how they made it, how they started. And this is just a wonderful, it’s like a flow of life and energy, different, you know, like you don’t stock, you don’t do basic everyday routine job. It’s always something new. It’s always something different, different energies. Absolutely. Talk, talk to me about the, like, importance of story, like, and narrative.
Yeah. Because I think sometimes when business owners think about PR, they think like, Oh, I did a press release once to announce maybe a change of CEO or this or that. Like, there’s different types of PR. So there’s the type of PR that’s just, The very bulletin board esque, we’ll say like the in old school, just notifications, you know, there’s different kind, but like what you do and when talk, we’re talking about not saying you don’t do that, by the way, but the, the, the story part, the narrative.
Like, talk about that a bit. Yeah. You need to have something unique. What makes you different from others? We need a hook. Like why should people care? Why should someone read this? Very catchy. Very you know, like if you were a fashion brand, like maybe you use specific technique or maybe you use specific material, you know, or something like should be something about your brand that makes you different.
Other brands don’t do so it’s an informational occasion, you know, or maybe there is something happened to your company or to I don’t know in the world.
You know you need and the and the thing I like to tell people is I’m like think about how you Consume content if you won’t read it, then why should somebody else just because it’s you it doesn’t mean that okay now people I mean, we’re especially for the entrepreneurs. We know we start a business. It doesn’t mean everybody runs to our door It gives us their money, right?
That’s not how usually how entrepreneurship works. Yeah. Yeah True. So looking at if somebody’s never done, I want to just talk for a moment to somebody that’s never done PR in the past. They’ve heard about it. They’ve thought about it. They’re not they’re like, do I need it? Do I not like, where do they start?
Like in general, where do they start? For example, in our platform, we implement AI that helps you in this case. So if you very, very new to the media, you just tell AI, like, listen, I am owning a coffee shop in New York and my budget is 3, 000 for example, and AI will start. what’s the best media for you, suggesting you something, or in our roadmap it, it doesn’t exist yet, but we’re building it.
The AI is going to show you an example, how your article is going to look like, you know, so you person, the person’s get the interpreter, get inspired, like, Oh, it looks nice. I want to do it, you know? So before he spends any money or something. Yeah. So in this is actually really. Simple, I think, you know, because That’s you famous on the internet and Google by placing articles in famous media.
There is no rocket science. You know, and I tell people this all the time. I’m like, you’d be shocked what happens when you start doing it. And it accumulates over time. It’s like, some people get lucky. They put something out and it just, you know, Oh, all these amazing things happen. But, but in general, if you have gotten lucky, then consider it that unless you, you just dropped a hit album or something that just has never happened or something.
But in general, if you got lucky, I got lucky. My very first piece of PR. Don’t even know how I got, I got a Forbes placement. And then the second one was I, IBD. And this is, this is years ago when I was in money management and stuff like that. So those were big, big publications when that mattered for me and I got lucky.
And then I had a dry spell. And I was like, Oh, wow, wait a minute. Like, I, nobody’s called me in a while. Nobody, like, nobody cares. Like, and then I didn’t know anything about this like years ago. This is a solid decade ago. If you don’t, don’t give up. You just keep trying. You know, well, then I learned it, but, but not don’t.
But now what you do is you need to have a strategy. So they need to work with a company like yours. They need to think about, they need to set aside a budget. Think about this is our PR. For me, I was just lucky. I didn’t even know I wasn’t even trying to get, like, it was just some random inquiries and I’m like, yeah, I’ll comment.
And I’m like, then I’m like, isn’t this cool? And then I realized what the value of that was. It was just dumb luck, dumb luck. So I’m like, but then when the luck ran out, I’m like, wait a minute. That’s not how it works. You don’t just, but also you told ask a question. Me what, what excites me? Yeah. The reaction of a client, because especially if they’re new to PR and media.
Oh yeah. They didn’t, they they always wanted to try. Yeah. And they finally tried it and then they saw themselves. Yeah. Online. And a lot of times when they share it, like they share and then they share it and they, the relatives and friends, like, oh my god. You know, people believe everything, whatever is on internet, they take more clients.
You know, like they so excited and I see this excitement. Yeah. But then guess what? They start monitoring themselves every day. Google News, you know, like everywhere and they need the more and more and more. And I said, like, I was talking to this lady, she’s 40 years in PR. PR is like a drug. You know what she told me?
Attention is a drug. So he’s like, psychologically, people want attention. Is that a good enough? Is that a good enough, a good enough hook for this episode? Attention is a drug. Attention is a drug, yeah. With Irina. Yeah. I won’t do that to your branding, don’t worry. Oh my god, can you imagine? No, no, no. No, I wouldn’t do that with your branding, but it is funny.
Yeah, yeah. Well, Irina, I have to say, I really appreciate you taking some time out of the conference and coming up after your speaking engagement to to engage with our audience over at Mission Matters. That being said, I want you to look into the camera. I want you to tell people how they can follow up, how they can learn more.
Yes please go to e pr. online or you can contact me directly. You probably going to leave some information. Yeah, we’ll put the links and all the good stuff in the show notes. So don’t worry about that. To help the strategic session is free. And if, even if you spend like 10 minutes of your life and we’re going to discuss something about your brand, and even if you’re not ordered, but it’s going to.
leave some you know, understanding of what you have to do next. That would be really, you know, I would be really pleased to give you this time and help you with whatever you need. Amazing. Well, and for everybody listening, if you need something else to do right now, it’s hit that subscribe button. If you haven’t done it yet, especially if you’ve been listening to us for a long time, this is a daily show each and every day, we’re bringing on new guests, new founders, new, amazing stories for you.
I don’t want you to miss a thing. So definitely hit that subscribe button and Irina again. Thank you so much for coming. so much.
