Sources
Is Stephanie Burns, A Forbes Contributor, Providing Paid PR Services?
Forbes.com is a credible American magazine. It publishes original articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing themes every two weeks. Forbes also features sections dedicated to different regions, such as Mexico, Italy, India, and so forth. It is a popular journal in the PR and SEO industry because of its credibility and reach.
Getting Featured or Covered in Forbes [ Digital] has lots of advantages when it comes to Branding and SEO.
1. It adds credibility and increases exposure
2. It helps in Organic Reach and SEO Ranking
3. It helps to Verify your Social Media Profile [ PR Industry secrets ]
However, it’s not easy to get featured on Forbes; in order for them to consider you for their story or news, you must be a reputable person or company. However, as time went on, a lot of forbes contributors developed an interest in financial gain and starting including companies and entrepreneurs in their columns in form of guest post or media mentions. This contributor either owns a PR agency or works with a handful that do, rather than overtly selling their services directly. Although these contributors refute the accusation, there is always a dark side to the PR industry.
Just in case any EDITOR of Forbes wants to contact me for the Proof then please get in touch.
Contributors usually Feature these Entrepreneurs in form of Interviews or Feature articles where they try to cover their life struggle / Business Journey / Startup News keeping informative and neutral to make article look Organic or they club a lot of clients in a single article. The paid mentions are usually seen in form of Mention ( 1 – 2 lines coverage ) or feature article ( article around client ). If you are looking to buy Forbes coverage, then instead of approaching this contributor who denies their involvement in paid service, you should visit Freelancing sites like Fiverr.com or PeoplePerhour.com where you will find a lot of Freelancers offering services at $800 – $1500 for 1 or 2 mention and $5k – $7k for Feature Article.
Stephanie Burns [https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/] is one such Forbes contributor that we were able to identify. She is the creator of the branding and public relations firm The Wyld Agency. Having worked in entrepreneurship, media buying, strategy, and brand development, she is aware of the significance and worth of being included in Forbes article. In her column, she focuses primarily on female entrepreneurs. She has, however, discussed a small number of male entrepreneurs, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a paid mention.
Please be aware that just a small number of her articles—the ones we’ve posted below—include the paid mention.
Merging Clients in a Single Article:
Her Forbes piece “Got Goals? Time To Get A Coach” is the ideal illustration of how to include quotes from several clients in one piece while giving them credit for “NAME,” “POSITION,” and “COMPANY NAME.” In PR services, this technique is known as CEO Mention or Brand Mention. Numerous entrepreneurs and founders included in this article are well-known for their paid articles. All you have to do is Google the coaches that are mentioned in this post; a plethora of paid articles about them will appear. Examples include Charlie Johnson, about whom you can Google a tonne of paid articles, and Mike Ashabi, who we discussed in our dedicated post.
She tried her best to make it naturally by not giving any backlinks to them. But half of the mention in this article is the clients who already have a lot of paid PR. so it’s not rocket science to understand the nature of the mention.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2021/08/01/got-goals-time-to-get-a-coach/
Zara Harutyunyan’s Feature Article.
Zara Harutyunyan is a nurse practitioner with expertise in aesthetics. Additionally, she founded CRMC Aesthetics, a medical aesthetics centre. Stephanie Burns’ feature article on Zara Harutyunyan is a paid public relations piece. On our website, we have discussed Zara Harutyunyan, who has numerous paid PR articles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2021/09/25/how-to-stand-out-in-a-competitive-industry/
Jason Humble’s Paid Mention
Jason Humble is a Philanthropist, the Founder, and Chairman of Humble Capital Group. His Mention in Stephanie Burns’s article is a Paid mention. You can read about Jason’s paid article here who has done a lot of paid articles.
Anthony Mendez’s Paid Mention
Anthony Mendez is a health and fitness coach. He is also a co-host of the Sweat It Out Podcast and also runs a Full-Service Marketing Agency – Fitness Pro Agency. His Mention in Stephanie Burns’s article is a Paid mention. We have covered Anthony in our article here.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2021/01/16/tapping-into-health-to-excel-in-business/
The List can go on…
