The Changing Face of the WordPress Media Landscape and Its Impact on Brands

Rae Morey:
So, Adam, how would you describe the media landscape in WordPress?

Adam Weeks:
Oh, man, that’s a great question. And I visually see, I’m kind of a visual person. I see this Venn diagram of these overlapping circles because it is not one thing. It is several different layered things. And you can have media outlets be in more than one spot. You can also think of the audiences for these different media outlets. They also listen to more than one type of media, let alone more than one media outlet. So, yeah, I would describe it as an overlapping Venn diagram of circles that can be kind of confusing.

Rae Morey:
That’s not a simple answer. You’re listening to Media playbook, part of OpenMaker’s channel and Open Channel’s FM production. Today’s episode, we’re looking at the WordPress media landscape. It’s worth mapping out the media landscape, Adam, particularly, you know, as you work in public relations and you’re helping a lot of these companies that want to reach out to the media.

Adam Weeks:
It’s a great question. And I think it goes to just some of the things that we fundamentally know with our ecosystem. Nobody wants to be the best kept secret in WordPress, right? We want people to know that our business exists. And there’s a number of ways to do that. There are traditional ways that, I mean, traditional for us, where we pay for Google Ads or Facebook ads and we just pay for those advertisements. And we do that. We also know that we should have a social media presence and people make their own YouTube videos or LinkedIn, Twitter, all those types of things. And then there’s this next part where, okay, we have our own megaphone, but then we. You have these incredibly talented individuals, and in WordPress and in any real ecosystem that have their own megaphones, their own audience of dedicated people that listen to them. And how I think of this in one kind of short little sound bite, and especially when it comes to YouTubers or something like that, is that the person who taught you how to build a website, that person’s recommendation is really valuable. That’s a big deal. That’s one of the big kind of sticky ideas for why you should care about the media landscape.

Rae Morey:
So let’s take a step back. When you look at the, you know, media ecosystem in WordPress. What are the big buckets of coverage that you see?

Adam Weeks:
Oh, excellent. So let’s start, we can start really big or start small. Let’s go ahead and start small. Small. And in that you’re going to have your core WordPress that this is the hardcore WordPress people. And maybe one way to think about it is the people, these are the same people who are going to be a media sponsor for a WordCamp. These are your post status, your WP minute, the repository. These are the places where you are only really known in that WordPress ecosystem. And that’s one of those Venn diagrams. Another interesting part of this is that you’ll have your corporate companies that own their own media outlets. And so that’s a little bit different because you have independent such as the repository, but then you’ve got these other ones. So that’s another interesting, maybe like an overlap on top of this Venn diagram.

Rae Morey:
So you’re talking about, you know, company blogs and company YouTube channels and company.

Adam Weeks:
Blogs come in lots of different flavors where some of them simply just, you know, it’s pretty small. It’s just like their customers and they email them. Others of them do go above and beyond and have honestly valuable media outlets where they are teaching things. And so those do have those do changes bigger than that, you’re outside of that. You’re then going to start getting into your, your YouTubers and, and oftentimes there are very few core like WordPress, only YouTube channels. Many of the successful YouTube channels that are working in our ecosystem. Essentially it how I kind of think of them is that people who are trying to make money online, that’s their audience. WordPress is one of the tools that people use.

Rae Morey:
But yeah, just on that note, you know, let’s pick that thread a bit. How, how do motivations differ between publications, you know, independent publications, publishers, company blogs, community driven voices essentially how are these outlets making money? And, and you know, because that is a motivator, right?

Adam Weeks:
Let’s follow the, let’s follow the money and the motivations because that’s a really important thing. If you are a company that says hey, we want to be visible out there and just because you want a thing doesn’t mean you’re going to get a thing. It’s important to understand why the repository exists and who it exists for and what are your, your motivations for a story for a sponsor. The same thing is going to go for a post status for an open channels for any of these, you know, the WP minute, those core and then your YouTubers. So it’s essentially those companies are sponsored by get money in a couple of different ways. If you’re a YouTube channel, you might get some money straight from YouTube because you have enough views. That’s somewhat rare. You then have affiliate money because you click a link and then if you buy something that is going to send them affiliate revenue, then there is sponsorships where a company will sponsor an episode or sponsor a newsletter. And then you have memberships where, hey, if you want to be part of our community, there is a membership fee. So, yeah, memberships, sponsorships, affiliates, and then direct revenue from that outlet. There’s also sometimes direct advertisements. Does that make sense?

Rae Morey:
Yeah, yeah, I use advertisements on the repository website. Yeah, with sponsors. It’s. Yeah, it’s an interesting one because at the end of the day, we all need to make a living. But I guess for, for you and for your clients is understanding the motivations of the different outlets that you might be approaching for coverage because you want to understand how they’re going to treat your content. So let’s dive down into the different types of outlets, starting with websites and blogs. So they’re still very much a staple of WordPress news. You know which ones stand out to you and you know, how would you explain how they typically work?

Adam Weeks:
The admin bar has an incredible Facebook group. Group. And it’s a very valuable place for agencies. And Kyle does an incredible job of cultivating. This is not a place to go sell. He. He will kick you out if you come in and I’m gonna sell, sell, sell. Like, no, you’re not. And. And he does a really good job of that. And of course, the repository, the WP minute, is mixed. So I would say the repository is one of the few. Purely like, this is a written type of newsletter, the admin bar, WP in it, there’s going to be a mix of newsletter and video and they’ll be in different ways like that. So, yeah, you’ve got website and blogs, depending on where they’re going to be located.

Rae Morey:
And then we also have newsletters which have been around for a really long time. How would you, you know, tell me about the reach and the influence of newsletter writers?

Adam Weeks:
Right. It’s when somebody has said, send me an email because I believe this. And they. And you can actually track opens. You can track. Okay. Are they engaging? That is valuable to a company to know how many eyeballs that they’re getting. When we are judging ROI on a marketing investment, more data is helpful. It’s still just data because not all clicks are equal. Not all eyeballs are the same. And so we can kind of get overdone with some of these metrics and analytics. But when, if you have a newsletter that has a hundred and someone else has a hundred thousand, the a hundred thousand is going to be more valuable no matter what eyeballs you’re talking about. And those are the metrics that someone can share. Hey, if you’re on our newsletter, that this is the type of reach that you can have.

Rae Morey:
Absolutely. Podcasts, how do you, you know, tell me about the podcast. We got so many podcasters in this space, but how do you, how do you measure ROI?

Adam Weeks:
Yeah, that’s difficult. So I had the wonderful experience of this weekend, this past weekend, going to sacked anime, which is for Sacramento Anime convention. I’ve never been to an anime convention before.

Rae Morey:
Wow. No, I have not.

Adam Weeks:
It’s quite an experience.

Rae Morey:
That sounds fun.

Adam Weeks:
It was fun. Sure, it was fun. Yes. My kids were all excited. So I was chaperoning a trip and there was this big, huge room and all around the perimeter were famous people to certain people that they were signing autographs. By far the longest line by 10x. Anybody else was a person from a famous podcast in the Dungeons and Dragons genre.

Rae Morey:
Wow.

Adam Weeks:
They are impactful. They are meaningful. Podcasts are really tricky because they can be in so many different areas and shared in so many different ways. It’s difficult to get good metrics on them. And sometimes the value in a podcast is that it for a small podcast is that it exists that you saw that that person got interviewed. There’s even value in that and that they are searchable. People will go and listen to podcasts from a long time ago. And I would say that podcasts are one of the more difficult things to determine an ROI on. But when you have people engaging and listening and you’re in their ear holes as they’re doing the dishes or going for a run, that’s pretty valuable. People often aren’t distracted while they’re listening to podcasts. They are listening to the podcast versus sitting at their computer scrolling through socials. That’s pretty distracting.

Rae Morey:
Yeah, they feel very, very relationship driven.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah, yeah. You get to know the person on the, you know, hearing because it’s kind of an intimate sort of medium where, yeah, you’re. You’re listening to this person talk about and share their thoughts. It’s different than the other ones.

Rae Morey:
And that kind of segues into YouTube, which is visual as well as well as audible.

Adam Weeks:
Right, YouTube. So this is one thing that’s interesting for me is that we are seeing Google be really kind of disrupted with the zero click searches and where someone asks a question and they are given back an AI answer and then someone got the answer so they don’t need to click on anything. I you asked a thing and I learned it and now I don’t need to go to that blog. I don’t need to go. That is definitely disrupting how people search the Internet and find things. YouTube is the second largest search engine by a good measure. And you go to. YouTube is still very much a search type of thing. I, I afford this type of thing because I want to learn something. I’m curious about WordPress websites in 2025 or what’s popular or what are these plugins? People search those things. In our ecosystem, it’s rare that you’re going to watch every piece of content from a typical creator. Like my kids. When Mr. Beast puts out a new video, they’re watching the video like that’s entertainment purely. And they’re going to watch every single one of his videos. There’s not a lot of that in WordPress. More of what you’re going to get is that searchability. So that title and thumbnail are a lot. And people go to YouTube because for two reasons typically is they want to be educated or they want to be entertained. And so we call that edutainment. And that is the thing that people are going there on purpose to learn a thing.

Rae Morey:
Yeah, and then we’ve also seen in the WordPress space, social channels and I guess company megaphones, but people who work for companies who have their own channels. Can you expand on that a little bit more?

Adam Weeks:
Yeah, so that’s a really interesting thing is that you have these different channels and there is a mix of independent, there is a mix of, okay, we have our company’s YouTube channel and to do that you have one of two choices. Either internally, you have the talent to make YouTube videos, or you go and hire someone to be your representative to represent your company on your YouTube channel. So you hire someone to make videos about your business. That’s another one. So those are. It’s still your company, then you’ve got independent YouTube channels or independent channels. And people very clearly are not going to those YouTube channels or watching those videos to be sold to. And this is where I do some, A fair amount of my consultation is as a business, we want to go sell, sell, sell, buy our thing. It’s amazing. Hold on. If you do that, if you think of your own YouTube viewing habits, if all that video is, is just one big advertisement, that’s not what I came there for. I came there to be educated or entertained. I am willing for a short advertisement. That’s a, an agreement that the audience has with the YouTube channel. Is that all right? I know you need to make money. This video is brought to you by. So go check them out for a 30% promo code. There’s an area where if it’s short enough and interesting enough, you can get away with it. But what happens when that ad read becomes a minute, two minute, three minutes? Like, wait a second, that’s not why I’m here. And knowing how to use that YouTube channel so that, yes, you see our name in a positive light. And then on to the entertaining video, the other one. So that’s a integrated video. Then you have a dedicated video where a content creator makes an entire video. And this may be a comparison video or a deep dive into how this product works, but. Or the whole video is about that company. It gets kind of tricky there. Those dedicated versus integrated videos.

Rae Morey:
Yeah, it’s definitely an interesting one because people really tune out to ads. I guess that’s, That’s a tricky one. That’s one I’m constantly optimizing.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah.

Rae Morey:
On the repository website with advertisements, I mean, people still click on them, but you know, we can provide the platform as publishers, but the content needs to be super engaging. And it’s interesting seeing what people will click on or watch.

Adam Weeks:
Right.

Rae Morey:
And you know, if you make something entertaining and clicky enough, they will, they will. People do click through. People are interested and want to learn about other products in the space anyway. That’s my little soapbox.

Adam Weeks:
Well, and I would say that yes, they want to learn about other products, but really, if you think about what they’re actually clicking on, they. They are clicking on a solution to a problem that they have.

Rae Morey:
Exactly.

Adam Weeks:
Like you have Uncovered you. So there’s this thing in education where you’re creating a knowledge gap. For instance, if we were teaching a class on the history of World War II and I was coming like oh I know about World War II, it was Axis allies. But then if I really as a teacher wanted you to get into the information about World War II, I would make something that may, you may find curious or oh, I want to know more about that or a little bit controversial. And then you’re going to have this, oh, I don’t know everything about it. Now my brain wants to close that gap and learn about that thing. A good advertisement will open the gap that you may not know everything about XYZ plugin or hosting or whatever it is. And. And so to close that gap you’re going to click on that link to learn more about it. But it always comes back to I don’t care about companies or whatever. I care about that I want to do things faster or I want to make more money or more cheap whatever it is. And so that’s what I’m clicking on is I’m clicking on in pursuit of the. Of a solution to a problem that I have.

Rae Morey:
Definitely. And also being aware that the in marketing, I can’t remember what it’s called but being aware of the person’s state who might be looking at your advertisement.

Adam Weeks:
So where they’re at in their fun.

Rae Morey:
Yeah, exactly. So and it was really interesting. I watched. We’re getting off track here. I watched wu’s marketing presentation a few weeks ago.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah.

Rae Morey:
And it’s really interesting hearing from their chief marketing officer. Was it her or was it. No, it was someone else who on the call who was explaining how their funnel works and how at the moment a lot of their focus is on education because they know there’s only a small percent that are open at any one time within a three to five year period. I think it was to actually switching to woo of the million plus store merchants.

Adam Weeks:
That brings me to. I had a call today with a client, I’ll mention their name because this were talking about this exact thing is that so the independent analytics they are taking on Google in this analytics area and one of the things we’re talking about what type of content to make is that there are people that are in buckets all along their customer’s journey. There are people who know that they exist, people who don’t know that they exist and there are people who don’t even know that they need analytics or that it is a problem or that an analytics on your website can solve a problem that is an important thing to know about. Part of the, of the communication, part of the journey that they are going to be embarking on is communicating that in order for you to optimize your website, to make the most of your website, to make money on your website, you really need to have good, strong analytics that are simple to understand. You’re not, you know, but that is a piece of information or that multiple pieces of information that they need to get out there that people should pay attention to the analytics of their website. Like, oh, I didn’t know I needed to do that. I’m a mom and pop, you know, store down the street and I have a website. Oh, I, I, I need to pay attention to this. So there’s parts of that journey that people need to pay attention to. So for the independent analytics as an example, it’s okay, this is an issue and then there are lots of options and you know, of that there are companies that do this thing and then we are one of the companies that do it really well. So it’s that like multiple parts of that journey.

Rae Morey:
So let’s unpack that. If you know, representing independent analytics and we’ve just talked about the different kinds of outlets in the WordPress space, what would you say to them around how would they promote their brand, you know, their brand awareness, you know, what options are available to indie creators, you know, when they’re approaching brand building and product promotion in this space Essentially, unfortunately, it.

Adam Weeks:
Starts with a budget. Like what can you do? Like what are all the things? Right? And a budget is going to tell you like, all right, it’s going to focus you on the most important things first. And like, all right, we can do these things, these are good things, but we’re not going to be able to do them first. So that’s one of the first things is how much can you spend on that? Because we know certain things to be true. The more often someone sees our logo, the better. That’s just a, a known thing. That’s why Coca Cola and Apple you see the logo all over the place. Because that is a good thing. Regardless of the context, that logo is valuable. So that’s one thing is just get, become visible in the places where your audience is, is. So that’s going to be sponsoring the repository where they, where you see that logo on there. Like those are going to be the things that they’re going to want to do on a podcast people. Like that’s going to be a thing where they’re going to want to do. When we come to some of this messaging things, one of the things that we can talk about is are there YouTubers or people who are maybe teaching a course and it could be on the importance of analytics and it’s a five part course and it is brought to you by independent analytics. And the course isn’t about independent analytics, it is about analytics, about knowing what’s on your website, all those different things. And maybe they sponsor something like that because you are authentically educating people about it and because there’s a thing that’s true. Every company was started because they saw a problem that needed to be solved. So these guys, Andrew and Ben, great guys, they saw that Google really had this complex convoluted analytics and it was kind of crazy. There was a space in the market to help with that. So that is there, there, there is a problem to be solved and educating people about that problem is I think that top of the journey, beginning of the journey, work to be done.

Rae Morey:
Interesting. So that’s for a smaller kind of indie operation. Let’s look at say a hosting company. Yeah, obviously their budget would, you’d hope would be a bit bigger. And so there are, you know, something we should also mention is the scope. We have WordPress, you know, media outlets in the WordPress space. There are also, there’s also tech media. If they have a really big story, it would be mainstream outlets like, you know, BBC, CNN, some of those big ones versus like TechCrunch, verge wide fast company in the tech space. What would you say to a hosting company that is, you know, looking for brand awareness, trying to get more customers on board.

Adam Weeks:
Right. And it’s going to where they are in that Venn diagram of someone who’s going to TechCrunch probably is a pretty good candidate for someone who needs hosting. You know, those are overlapping Venn diagrams if they go to the Verge and that kind of stuff. Obviously not Everybody who visits TechCrunch needs hosting, but a good percentage of them likely could. So those are the big wins. They’re also incredibly expensive if you’re going to force it. Obviously if you can do a PR thing where you can become good news, we’ve talked about this in the past, is that being newsworthy is really hard, especially if it’s positive news. Most news is negative news and so typically you’re going to end up buying it and those big outlets, you’re going to pay a lot for it. Those eyeballs though, the more times people see your logo, the better. And it just Works one of the things. So I will say that Roger Williams over at Kinsta, of the hosting companies, I think he’s probably doing the best job of being a human, a personality behind a hosting brand.

Rae Morey:
I agree.

Adam Weeks:
And he does. And a lot of how he does that is he interviews other people on LinkedIn. He’s just asking questions and he’s just a great face for that company. And I think that is valuable. Kinsta has invested in Roger and given him the means and the motivation to be that face of the company. Hosting is interesting because if you are an agency that is going to put your reputation on the line because you’re going to recommend that to one of your clients, that’s tricky because I’m saying I believe in WP Engine or I believe in Kinsta or I believe in Big Scoots or whoever it is, that agency is putting their reputation on the line. And what Roger’s doing is putting a face to that. Like, I trust Roger. He’s a good guy and he’s part of that team.

Rae Morey:
Yeah, that’s really interesting. Relationship marketing. It’s definitely something in the WordPress space, isn’t it, where everybody knows everybody in a way, and it is about leveraging relationships. Yeah. But also, I guess looking strategically at who you want to work with and the kinds of outlets that are going to best serve your needs. If you’re looking for brand awareness and promotion.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah, look inward. Is the thing when you’re thinking about this and what I mean by that is how much time and energy do you have in your company? Maybe it’s just you. What skill sets do you have? Do you have someone who can be camera facing easily? Do you have the time and energy to do that? I go to the doctor who is mowing their own lawn, like, all right, why are you mowing your lawn? You make a lot of money hourly and there’s one of two reasons. One, you just really enjoy mowing your lawn and that’s fun to you, so great, do that. But if you’re doing it to save you money, you would actually be making a lot more money if you just did more doctoring during that time and hire someone else to mow your lawn. The same thing goes for media. If you enjoy making content, it’s something you like doing, by all means, go and do it. Post, you know, once a day, at least once a week, whatever it is, find a rhythm, stick to it. That’s going to be valuable. If you just can’t stand it and you have the means, that means you’re paying someone else to do that for you.

Rae Morey:
I think that’s a really nice note to wrap up on. Thanks a lot for the chat today. Adam. This has been really interesting. Going over the landscape. What are we going to talk about next time?

Adam Weeks:
Oh, man, that’s a great question.

Rae Morey:
Yeah, I’d love to hear from people who have topics that they’d love for us to unpack. We’ve looked at all kinds of things already. How to pitch. That was a really good episode. So, yeah, folks, if there’s a media topic you want us to unpack, let us know. But in the meantime, yeah, I think.

Adam Weeks:
That listeners of this podcast, you are all blessed because you have access to Ray and, and an incredible, I mean, you know, whatever. But no, seriously, the repository, Ray, what an incredible asset to WordPress and all that you do.

Rae Morey:
Thank you.

Adam Weeks:
And I think that is. Yeah, if you, if you found this podcast helpful, share it with someone else and let’s, let’s keep this thing going.

Rae Morey:
Yeah, I mean, I’m really keen to help people understand how they can promote their businesses and I hope this content is actually really helpful. So, folks, let us know if there’s something else you want us to explore. There’s definitely so many topics. Just thinking back over what we’ve talked about. Earned versus paid media. Anyway, we’ll dig into some. Some topics. Okay, well, thank you for today, Adam.

Adam Weeks:
That’s all for now. We’ll see you guys soon.

Rae Morey:
Bye.