I went to a great presentation this week by @jaykrall on Blogger Relations. He talked in depth about how PR pros can seek and engage bloggers with their brand. Great speaker if anyone is looking for one.
One thing he said is that bloggers know other bloggers. I guess I never really thought about it but of course they do. The challenge is breaking into that group. There are many similarities between bloggers and the cool group in high school. Continue reading
Over the last few days, I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading about Google’s new privacy policy. It has received some positive and negative views. Privacy, to many, is a premium; we don’t want our information shared or sold to anyone. Of course, I enjoy privacy, too.
Here’s a (not so) little secret, though. When you log onto Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., your information is out there. You signed up for a Gmail account or to have a Twitter profile, you understood there was a risk. So why so many complaints about your privacy being infringed upon? Because we all need something to take issue with nowadays. Continue reading
I recently wrote a blog post about the death of Andy Rooney and how PR and social media pros would be wise to learn the art of storytelling by observing how he had the innate ability to take the simplest of topics and weave a creative story that taught us a lesson about life.
I had the opportunity on Tuesday to participate in ConnectChat where our Editor-in-Chief Nathan Burgess touched on many topics surrounding the PRBreakfastClub blog including a brief discussion on how the blog comes up with story ideas. A transcript of the blog can be found here.
Jason Mollica pointed out during the chat that often times inspiration for a blog post comes from odd places and as PR and social media practitioners, our observation skills must be keen and sharp because you never know when an event, encounter or news story will spur us to cultivate it into a post where we can draw a parallel to our profession. Continue reading
Hard to believe we are only a few weeks away from the end of 2011. At this time of the year, we get to look back at the year that was and take stock. What was good? What was a major #fail? As is the case every year, there is plenty of bad news in the world. Of course, in the public relations industry, we have witnessed some pretty disastrous events, too (we’re looking at you, Charlie Sheen and Anthony Weiner).
This just hammers home that it is absolutely paramount to stress how important good PR is to you and your clients. Of course, you can never predict when a crisis is going to happen. But, why aren’t some doing a better job planning? Continue reading
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! But only if the holiday rush hasn’t crushed you yet. If you’re (still) filled with the spirit of the season, please indulge me by reading this post with a fun, good-natured, Christmas-y attitude. ‘Tis the season to be jolly after all!
So the headline might be a bit of an exaggeration, but don’t fault me, we are all in PR. However, there are things that I do know in PR that I learned from the man in the red suit. So here’s my list of things PR-related that I learned from Santa: Continue reading
In today’s social world, it’s seems easy to just jump in to social networks on a whim. But it’s important to remember, all social media efforts should map back to your company’s business objectives in order to be successful – just as we do in PR.
A brand shouldn’t create a Facebook presence simply because it wants to be on Facebook.
Your social media and PR strategies alike should map to a broader goal, whether it’s increasing brand awareness for your company, products or service; building web traffic; or whatever other goals you may have. Also similar to PR, if social media engagement is not tackled with a plan, it can have an adverse affect. So how do you best ensure a positive outcome of your social media efforts?
Here are five tips for social media, which as you’ll see are very much the same rules for traditional PR. Continue reading
A few thoughts on recent marketing and PR industry news: Continue reading
In case anyone missed it, on Tuesday of last week the FTC settled their eight-count complaint against Facebook alleging they “misled users about the use of their personal information.” Essentially the FTC was claiming that Facebook had knowingly made changes to their privacy settings in December of 2009 that automatically made aspects of user’s profiles public by default without their permission.
At issue is the inability for Facebook users to have control over who sees their private information (name, picture, city, gender, friends, etc.) and who doesn’t. Twitter has also been a Target of the FTC, and settled a similar case back in June of 2010 for failing to safeguard user information. Continue reading
You won’t believe it.
It’s still out there. The dreaded auto-dm. As long as the scourge exists we shall continue to post our “best” finds in our five-year never-ending mission to explore strange new worlds make this a better SM world… (and in case you need ’em – part I and part II). Continue reading
I was saddened by the death of Andy Rooney. The world lost a cultural media icon with his passing and for those of you who knew him and followed his work, a part of you may have been left empty too. Rooney gave the world a long and distinguished 70 year career as a war correspondent, writer, producer, and journalist but was undoubtedly best known for his 3 minute essays at the end of the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” where he constantly pointed out life’s unspoken truths or subtle lies. The quintessential “curmudgeon,” Rooney often touched our lives with his prose and opinions, got us thinking about controversial topics and frequently struck a chord by discussing taboo topics or subjects that no one wanted to talk about like why no one speaks in an elevator. Continue reading