The Toxic Coworker

April 9, 2010 CT Michaels 3 Comments

We’ve all been there. The first few days of new jobs are always troublesome, finding out who you want to talk to, who you can click with, who you want to make your new happy hour buddy, etc. Every job has their characters among the employees from the cool kids, the slackers, the hard workers/overachievers, and the toxic coworkers.

What is the Toxic Coworker? The worst coworker of them all. They may be amazing and fun, and even your best friend, but at they end of the day, they are the venom that flows through your skin slowly killing you…day by day, hour by hour. The toxic coworker is the person that just slowly complains and complains about the job. They tell you all the bad things about work, even if you have no complaints and are happy go lucky about it! Continue reading →

Nathan "PRCog" Burgess

TweetDilution:Are you visible?

April 9, 2010 PRCog 7 Comments

Detail view of a hayroll against blue sky — There's a needle in there somewhere

A few days ago a minor firestorm brewed over the importance of your (whether that’s you, your brand, your company, etc.) follower count over at Kate’s post. Everyone providing commentary had valuable input (in my opinion) and certainly each has a different goal, or at the very least different way of approaching the issue. One even found great pleasure at the hypothetical situation that an account would have more followers outside its target audience than inside of it because then at least there’d be confirmation you (or the account) was in-fact doing something right.

All of these conversations centered on how many followers the account itself has. There is another factor to consider in this formula to determine reach — How many people are your followers following? Yes, I’m serious. We’re talking TweetDilution people. Continue reading →

TJ Dietderich

Handling the Haters

April 8, 2010 TJ Dietderich 6 Comments

Haters gon’ hate. That’s what they do. And in our industry, we’re going to see the haters popping up all over the interwebs. Chances are, unless you’re flacking for fuzzy baby lambs, someone out there is hatin’ on your client, your client’s product, or your company. (And even baby lambs may have made enemies; you never really know.) So what do you do with the haters, the negative comments, the angry bloggers, the furious tweeters, the disappointed Yelpers, the flaming Facebooker?

You could ignore them. Or you could do your job and handle the hate. Continue reading →

Jess Greco

Happys Flacks=Productive Flacks

April 8, 2010 Jess Greco 3 Comments

As I spend more and more time gaining experience in the PR industry, and as I continue to befriend other flacks and get to know them professionally, I’ve managed to catch a “glimpse” so-to-speak into a wide variety of PR agencies. Large, small, public, private, corporate, and consumer, it’s astounding how different every firm is.

Unfortunately, as much as I get to know about all of the things that my acquaintances love about their companies, I also tend to see the negative side as I cross into the “confidante” territory. One unsettling trend that I’ve started to see more often is agencies who don’t value their employees and treat them as replaceable hit machines who are expected to treat their job as their entire lives. This is by no means the standard of the industry, but it’s something I see more than should ever be the case. Continue reading →

Jeff Esposito, Keith Trivitt

What Should Be Increasing in 2010: Branding

April 7, 2010 Jeff Esposito and Keith Trivitt 10 Comments

As a recent Financial Times article noted, companies are looking to spend more money in terms of marketing over the next calendar year. While we would love to say that a large piece of the pie would be allocated towards branding and public relations, we are realists and know that the money—for the most part—will go towards ever more advertising efforts.

And that is a damn shame. While advertising may be the flashy cog that looks good in media forms, what does it all mean? Your company is much more than a singing fish, talking baby or another gimmick. Sure you can name what companies are associated with the previously mentioned gimmicks. The question is, do you know what these brands really stand for? Continue reading →

Marie Baker

The Short Job Stint

April 7, 2010 Marie Baker 13 Comments

On occasion a PR pro makes the wrong decision about taking a job. Whether it was the money, or the potential opportunity for growth, changing jobs might not always end up how you envisioned. I know this all to well from past experiences.

Let’s say you have taken a job you’ve come to now realize was the wrong move, and you have only been there a short few months. Or you recently took a position and the company was forced to do layoffs and you end up on the cutting room floor. More than likely your next step is to look for another job ASAP.

Obviously a short job stint isn’t necessarily a great thing for the resume, and it also could be a red flag to potential employers. How do you approach short job stints? Continue reading →

Danielle Cyr

The Art of the Unfollow

April 6, 2010 Danielle Cyr 8 Comments

Even though I know better than to wonder why my follower count is what it is, and I’ve come to let it rise and fall on its own accord, I couldn’t help but be a bit irked by its vacillation between 699 and 700 multiple times over the course of just one afternoon. Was it something I tweeted? Something I hadn’t tweeted? In the end who knows and who cares. That said, it’s still fairly annoying, especially to someone who dislikes odd numbers.

My own ridiculousness aside (yes, Cog, I did read and do recall your post about Twitter 101 and getting over the importance of the follower count. And, yes, I do agree that Mack Collier’s recent post ‘The Fast Food Approach to Social Media’ said all that needs to be said about counting your followers) there must be an art to the unfollow. I’ve done it on occasion, mostly to correct what I consider to be an error or my early days – following celebs. I’m not talking one or two, I’m talking dozens. Continue reading →

Christina Khoury

40 Days 40 Nights without Facebook

April 5, 2010 Christina Khoury 18 Comments

Chocolate. Alcohol. Cheese. Cursing. Typical things that one would give up for Lent. I’ve tried to all of them for the full forty (read: forty-six when including Sundays) for Lent. In the Christian faith, Lent is to remind us of the temptation that Jesus endured in the desert from Satan. Lent is a time for us to give up one of our vices. I’m not religious. I go to church on the “important” holidays but this year I really wanted to give Lent a valiant effort. For the first time ever, I can truthfully say I survived Lent without cheating. I gave up Facebook. When people heard I was giving up Facebook there were a lot of questions: Why not Twitter? What do you miss most? Obstacles? Will you go back? etc. I can tell you this, life was better without Facebook. Continue reading →

PRBreakfastClub

Monthly Archives: April 2010