Behold the Power of Brand Advocates

For years, public relations professionals have known of the power of brand advocacy. But in the digital age brand advocacy is evolving into the realm and responsibility of nearly every type of digital marketer. Whether you’re working on a search marketing campaign or overseeing a client’s display strategy, every marketer needs to understand and believe in brand advocacy. Continue reading

Stop Listening, Start Watching

Look © by Benson Kua

We’re an industry of words – whether written or spoken, our bread and butter is, at its core, words.

  • What position will the candidate take?
  • What is the company’s announcement going to be?
  • Talking points, key messages, sound bites…

The list goes on and on. The problem – words themselves – while having the immense power to move mountains, by themselves are meaningless.

 

Continue reading

The PR Event Toolkit

PR pros plan for the worst and hope for the best. It is our job. I asked about 50 PR pros what is in your PR Event Toolkit. You know, the go to box that you bring to every event that is stashed with a solution to just about any event crisis except the weather.

With this box you can either save the day or survive on a deserted island. Here is what they said are the necessities to have on hand: Continue reading

Friday Five: Summer Series

five © by mrbill

Starting today and running through until Labor Day we’re featuring 5 posts from around the web you may have missed probably worth your attention.  We’ll be rotating off who’s curating the posts so you’ll get a slightly different perspective each week.

And so, without further adieu, this week’s Friday Five (and none of them are about a certain social network’s IPO…at least not this week): Continue reading

Value of a Facebook Fan – Still Worth Considering?

Over the last year, chatter between brands and agencies continues to circle around the top of the defining and understanding the value of a Facebook fan.  There is no direct answer given the multiple of impacts that go into a Facebook brand strategy.  Many fans are gained through a combination of organic growth and paid acquisition – in light of GM’s announcement that it will no longer use Facebook ads, will other brands follow suit and change the conversation again on the value of a Facebook fan?  Continue reading

Why Viggle Will Change Television

Ever since Howdy Doody showed up in the 1950’s, PR and marketing folks have wanted to know how many people are watching a particular TV show. This sets advertising rates, actor salaries, and a million other things. Most of this is based on the Nielsen ratings, which is possibly the most laughable measurement tool in the history of everything. Nielsen selects a certain amount of people to wire a box to their TV that sends data OVER A PHONE LINE or to keep a journal about what they’ve been watching. Seriously. Starting to understand why CBS cleans up in the ratings? They target older demographics since older demographics are the ones most likely to use a systems like Nielsen. Enter Viggle. Continue reading

10 Ingredients to Make Your Event Execution Easy

Being in PR means that you plan and execute events to perfection and no detail is forgotten. Each PR pro has their style for planning and how they work to get it all done. There is a recipe for event planning which includes a little creativity, a little OCD, a little leadership and a dash of caffeine. When you put it all together you get some pretty stellar events that PR pros pull of every day.

Behind the scenes of the seamless event that you have produced there is an army of details that get you through. Here are some of the secret ingredients that help PR pros pull off perfection: Continue reading

Stop Being Idiots -or- NATO and Perspective

© by Newtown grafitti

I made a mistake yesterday.  I opened my full Twitter stream – a few thousand folks (probably 90% or more PR or Marketing professionals) talking all at once.

It seems there is a very vocal contingent, of or our own professionals, who know nearly nothing about civics, world politics or anything beyond the next Twilight book or score of the current game. Further, we sadly know what the common perception of PR/Marketing professionals is (thank you reality TV). So I have a simple request to stop the further degradation of our industry’s image:  Continue reading

PR Does Not Stand for Press Release (and Other Misconceptions)

Speech Bubble © by Vectorportal

I recently had a discussion with a man who is building a business that is aiming to help PR professionals with their biggest workflow issues.

He was very kind, and was asking me informed questions regarding the common issues I have and have seen coworkers deal with, when he said,

“We want to help press release… I mean PR professionals…”

Before answering his question, I clarified,

“PR does not stand for press release, it stands for public relations.” Continue reading