I read blogs – a lot of them. Some are for me because they’re in areas that interest me – such as Geekosystem and Singularity Hub, industry blogs so I can know when FB changes the proper picture size from 404×404 to 406×406 and can spend hours assigning someone to rewrite our best practices memo on the topic – Mashable, All Facebook, and Brafton. I read some just for fun – like TastefullyOffensive (for what should be obvious reasons). I don’t read as many as my colleague Robert Checkal who helps curate content for some of our clients – his Google Reader is by itself is an occasional S__storm of great content. Continue reading →
NASA scores a big PR win with the Mars landing of the Curiosity Rover
Welcome to Friday and another edition of “The Summer Week That Was.” Aren’t we lucky to work in a profession where news is always plentiful? Here are this week’s top five news stories:
Everyone knows that the NFL is practically bending over backwards to appeal to their female audience. Can we attribute the decision to put the first woman referee (well, technically she will be a Field Judge) on the field as part of their massive and well-targeted PR campaign to women? Or is the decision to let Shannon Eastin participate due to the NFL referee lockout caused by a collective bargaining agreement dispute? I suspect it’s a little bit of both. In my opinion, a savvy PR move by the NFL.
Hold up there social media cowboy (or cowgirl). Are you telling me that IT-decision makers, a demographic you would logically think gathers information from social media resources, considers other sources outside of social media to be more valuable for news gathering? Looks as if this survey may turn conventional wisdom on its head about the shift towards social for information and research prior to making a purchase. At least for some demographics.
Holy rapid fire tweets. There is no doubt that Twitter has stole the show as the social media platform darling of the 2012 London Olympics. 2,000 tweets per minute? Over 28 million total tweets about the games? Insane numbers. And the 2nd half of the Olympics is just getting into full swing.
I thought this was an interesting story not from the perspective of how quickly Alaska Airlines responded to the criticism, not because social media fanned a firestorm of complaints and negativity for the brand and not due to the fact that an airline ranked #1 in customer satisfaction can experience a problem of this magnitude. My interest was how people flew off the handle without knowing the whole story and how industry regulations and gut perceptions that consumers are unaware of often drive decisions. Before you complain about something, make sure you know both sides of the story.
In case you hadn’t noticed, NASA has sort of become the red headed step-child of taxpayer angst over government spending. Mired in a two year slump and with a dearth of projects on its plate coupled with public disdain over its budget, NASA needed a little PR shot in the arm. They are after all, more focused on successes than PR campaigns but at this point in their history, they needed the Rover Curiosity landing to pump up perspective, which as you know, is the bread and butter of PR.
That’s it for us on this Friday afternoon. Enjoy the weekend and do something fun with family or friends. Before you know it, the sun will be going down at 5pm and we will all be slogging through the dreary winter longing for days like this where the warm sun shines and the ice cream tastes just a little bit better.
As public relations professionals we are often asked – what exactly is public relations? Personally, I find that my definition is evolving daily as I am constantly finding connections between the core rules of public relations and everyday situations.
Now, it may be that I have less a month until I officially “tie the knot,” but I have found at least three core rules that public relations and wedding planning have in common: Continue reading →
If I was teaching a PR class, there are some media events that could make great case studies. Take the case of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., son of the famed civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Jackson Jr. is currently being hospitalized for depression and another unnamed physical ailment. However, the way this story was drawn out is a text-book case of how not to handle the media. Continue reading →
Talking points are a staple of public relations. A bullet-point document that helps clients stay on message during interviews, every PR agency is adept at producing talking points for just about any situation.
In my experience, however, clients sometimes push back when they receive these documents.
There are various reasons for the push back. “I know what I want to say.” “I’ll make my own notes.” “I don’t like talking from bullets.” “This is just make-work designed to bump up billable hours.”
I want to challenge these objections and discuss the usefulness of talking points. They are of great value in many, many situations. Continue reading →
I was introduced to the fashion PR and marketing blog PR Couture when I started following Crosby Noricks. In my humble opinion, PR Couture is one of the best fashion blogs to follow, especially if you have an interest in the business and/or communications aspect of the industry. That’s why I was thrilled when I received a copy of Noricks’ book, Ready To Launch: The PR Couture Guide To Breaking Into Fashion PR.
Noricks started PR Couture five years ago while in graduate school. According to her book, she felt frustrated with the lack of information available about fashion PR. Since then, Noricks was sponsored by Microsoft to attend New York Fashion Week, was one of the first bloggers invited to cover WWDMagic and Teen Vogue’s trade show, and has taught fashion communications classes. Continue reading →
Is it really August already? Wow, ½ a year in the books and still so many things to accomplish this year. I overheard someone say that school starts next week for a lot of kids? Whatever happened to being able to bike ride and swim the whole month of August?
Hope you have been having a good summer with time to rest with family and friends. Here’s this week’s top five news stories: Continue reading →
Thinking about a career in Marketing or PR? You likely have some pre-conceived notions about the position—Mad Men-esque awesometastical clients, wild agency parties or scoring sweet swag from your latest batch of A-list clients.
Consider this your wake-up call. Before you sigh, roll your eyes and wander off to watch more of the Olympics, stay with me. My team and I have huddled and some valuable advice for you—and not the “When we were your age, we walked uphill to school! Both ways! In 10 feet of snow! Barefoot!” variety. Instead, we want to impart some hard-learned wisdom that will (hopefully) help you decide if a career in Marketing or PR is really the career path for you. Sure, imagining your dream job is fun. But sometimes a dose of reality from those who have been there can help you make better decisions as you start your professional journey. And by the way, this advice applies to just about any career … or at least we think it might. Continue reading →
Whenever I see the words PR and bloggers next to each other I can usually expect there to be a reference about how PR and bloggers work together to spread a brand’s messaging. Two years ago I was trying to grow my personal blog’s following and decided to launch a project and test out a few PR tactics. What happened was my following grew from my two family members to over 10,000 readers that month, I was interviewed on NPR: All Things Considered and featured on a number of national and regional media outlets including the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. (Oh, and I landed a book agent). Continue reading →
I was introduced to the fashion PR and marketing blog 
