Brewing Success with Steve Rubel: Amplifying Content in a Competitive World

This week on Pipeline Brew, Matt sits down with media analyst and communications strategist, Steve Rubel, who brings a wealth of experience from his nearly 20-year tenure at Edelman, where he served as EVP of Media Insights and Strategy. 

Steve shares how his early passions of media, sports, and technology have led him to where he is today. As he touches on the evolving world of PR, Steve highlights just how much the field has evolved to what it is today, where influences, creators, and journalists are increasingly intertwined. Similarly, Matt & Steve explore the dichotomy between screen time and content creation – despite more channels for advertisements than ever before, brands are often losing attention due to the stark rise of content hitting smartphones.

To counteract today’s media noise, Steve emphasizes the importance of crafting authoritative and engaging content, offering insights on how companies can effectively harness both earned and owned media strategies. 

Stick around to hear “What’s On Tap for Steve Rubel.” With their conversation taking place prior to the AFC & NFC championships, Steve successfully predicts who would go on to win the 2025 Super Bowl.

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Guest Bio

Steve Rubel is a dynamic media analyst, innovation catalyst, and communications strategist with decades of experience in anticipating trends and shaping actionable insights that help organizations stay ahead in an evolving media landscape. 

During a 19-year tenure at Edelman, Steve provided strategic counsel to hundreds of global corporations and nonprofits, earning consistently high marks from client CEOs, CCOs, CMOs, as well as the firm's workforce.

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Guest Quotes

“Smartphones fill every pocket of your day. At the same time, there's been an explosion in content. And if you want to be seen, you have to amplify it through a paid channel.   And if you're not thinking about that in a holistic way, that content may not be seen.”

“Media companies, they seem to be in two camps when it comes to the AI platforms. Some of them are partnering with the Perplexities, the Anthropics, the Open AIs of the world. Some of them are suing them. And the ones that are partnering, I think could benefit, because we've seen that when these major platforms come along and they start to throw news sites’ a lot of traffic…some of them right away figure out how to take advantage of that.”

“[B2B content] can't be boring. It cannot be boring. And some of these topics are inherently boring, even for people who are reading them and thinking about them all day. And so [there] just needs to be a little bit of a point of differentiation to it.”

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Time Stamps 

00:00 Episode Start

00:58 Icebreaker 

03:39 Steve's background and passions

05:41 The blurring lines of media and influencers

10:14 The evolving PR landscape

18:18 The role of trade press and AI

24:17 The disruptive potential of generative AI

25:51 Exploring Muck Rack and its uses

30:13 The PESO model and content strategy

32:44 Challenges in B2B demand marketing

34:42 The importance of engaging content

38:22 What's On Tap

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Links

• Connect with Steve Rubel on LinkedIn
• Check out Steve's collaboration with Muck Rack
• Connect with Matt Hummel on LinkedIn
• Check out Pipeline360