We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful RIcki Weisberg. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with RIcki below.

RIcki, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

The biggest risk I have ever taken was to leave the corporate world and start my PR Agency. I spent twenty years building my career in the nonprofit and corporate world and I was the primary breadwinner for our little family. A lot was on my shoulders. But I felt the entrepreneurial spirit deep within me.

I was done with bosses telling me how much I could make and where I spend my time. I wanted it all – freedom of time and freedom financially. My son was only in kindergarten at the time and since he was just a few weeks old I was dropping him off at daycare at 7:30am and rushing to pick him up at 6pm. As nice as my bosses were, my life existed within a corporate structure that to this day is not friendly towards women and especially mothers.

I was constantly turned down for promotions, when my less experienced male counterparts were moving up the ladder. My company even hired me a business psychologist to “help me” with my executive presence – aka a woman who speaks her mind. My feminist, Women’s Studies major self couldn’t take it anymore. No more bosses.

Equipped with my laptop, confidence, and a mortgage looming over my head, I got started and launched Bird Hill.

In my first year of business, I signed 23 clients – and cleared my corporate salary. Two of those clients were nonprofits who trusted me to be their Publicist.

In 2020, I landed a nonprofit client a feature on the local news, and they raised $70,000 overnight. This was the work that lit me up.

In 2022 I decided to niche my agency down to focus on helping nonprofits secure consistent press placements. And a few months later I was bringing on my first team members. Now at Bird Hill PR, we are a team of five amazing women working to make the world a better place and secure our own freedoms.

Best risk I ever took!

RIcki, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Ricki Weisberg, and I am a Nonprofit Publicist and Founder / CEO of Bird Hill PR. I have 20+ years of experience building global mission-driven brands through PR and social media.

Bird Hill PR is a Social Impact Public Relations Agency located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, working exclusively with nonprofit organizations. Through securing consistent media placements and leading engaging social media campaigns, Bird Hill PR helps to increase visibility and brand awareness.

What sets us apart from our competitors is the personalized attention we provide our clients, truly becoming an extension of their team. Plus, we understand the actual struggles of the in-house communications team, as I spent the first 10 years of my career working at large nonprofits in the communications and fundraising departments. You are expected to wear one million hats, and securing press is not something you can really prioritize. That’s where Bird Hill PR comes in! We put the time and attention into crafting personalized pitches that secure consistent press.

I am passionate about social impact public relations because I have witnessed the impact securing consistent media can have on a nonprofit’s bottom line, helping to grow a community and ease fundraising efforts.

The first nonprofit I worked for was Women for Women International. When I started, I was the fifth employee – we then secured 9 appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show – and just a few years later, there was over 50 staff.

In 2019 I launched Bird Hill PR to leverage my 20 years of experience raising the brand awareness of mission-driven organizations to help make the world a better place.

One of my proudest moments was the work we were able to accomplish for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an organization working to dispel myths around religion and reproductive rights. One week into working with the organization, the Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade was leaked. This sent our work into overdrive. In less than 6 months, Bird Hill PR secured press with an audience reach of 615M people!

We want our nonprofit clients to feel supported with the knowledge that we understand what they are going through, we are obsessed with delivering results and when we do, they feel confident to speak about their mission in any media interview.

To learn more about Ricki Weisberg and Bird Hill PR visit:

www.birdhillpr.com
https://www.instagram.com/ricki_weisberg/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickiweisberg/
https://www.tiktok.com/@ricki_weisberg

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Showing up authentically and strategically in stories is the best advice I can give anyone looking to build their social presence. I subscribe to the KNOW, LIKE, TRUST philosophy I learned from HerHQ. If people are going to buy from you, they need to know who you are and like you – to trust you. So be transparent with your life and your work. Make sure you show people both sides of who you are.

Show the dogs, the coffee, the kids, and the travel. These are great conversation starters in the DMs that help increase your engagement rate and push your content out to more people. And don’t forget to post in stories with engagement features, like polls and stickers, for people to interact with. Those also help to push your content to the front of the algorithm.

My biggest follower growth happened via TikTok! On my son’s first day of 4th grade, I posted a video of him in kindergarten getting off the bus and informing me that the sandwich I made for him – was a “really terrible sandwich, by the way.” The video went viral on TikTok within a few hours, and within days we were on GMA and the Today Show talking about this funny little family video. Today the video has been viewed over 50M times! Plus, we launched a merch that gives back to fight childhood hunger at terriblesandwich.com

If you have any funny short videos, get them on TikTok! Not only did I grow my TikTok followers by 9K, and my IG followers also grew by 5K.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

The three pieces of advice I have for managing people and maintaining high morale are:

1. Add “Love on Team” to your schedule a few times a week. This way, even if you are super busy you stop and remember to love on your team. It helps them to feel appreciated. It also helps that when you need to correct their work, there is already a base of appreciation you are showing. So the corrections don’t sting as much.

2. Schedule weekly group calls with ice breakers and share the big picture with the team so they know what you are all working towards. When folks feel a part of something bigger, even if the whole team is remote, they feel more connected and motivated.

3. Every week, ask each team member what lit them up that week. Work towards giving your team more work that lights them up and moving work that doesn’t light them up to new freelancers.

Contact Info:

• Website: birdhillpr.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ricki_weisberg/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickiweisberg/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rickiweisberg