Some of you may have noticed that my Twitter stream isn’t as robust these days. There aren’t as many blog posts, news articles and conversations flowing. To be rather blunt, I simply haven’t felt like tweeting. I’ve snuck onto the web occasionally and opened the TweetDeck a couple of times, but the ‘new tweet’ alerts haven’t been as alluring. Some days, I’ve felt self-imposed pressure to tweet, as though I wasn’t living up to expectations. Other days, I’ve felt like the site of that demonic little black and red alert box blocking the ability to close documents was more than I could take.
While the motives for my lack of tweeting are a bit unclear, even to me, and I really have no clue where I would have found the time to tweet more than I have been, I’ve learned some really important lessons while tweeting less. Lessons that I will carry with me if/when I decided to start bombarding your Twitter stream again. Continue reading →
Do you ever feel like you are the only one that believes in something or honestly doesn’t care at all about something? For example, I feel that the botched Times Square bomber should suffer a public execution, regardless of if it was a failed terrorist attempt. I’m rooting for the guillotine, but a hanging or stoning would be fine in my book as well. When I say things like this people look at me like I’m so weird. Umm, my words to you…you spend all day in the spot he tried to bomb and then come back to me. Anyway, that’s just an example of what I’m discussing here.
So what’s the big deal with Facebook messing up this week? Everytime Facebook makes one mistake the Internet blows up saying so much nonsense. Ahhhh Privacy! I’ve been exposed, I have to run for the hills and bitch about it! People, it’s the Internet…as mentioned in previous posts nothing is private. Continue reading →
It’s evident that social media is a hugely successful endeavor for many brands and companies, while others may as well not have entered the SM sphere. After seeing the disparity in results first-hand, I started thinking about what makes the difference, aside from the obvious differences in levels of engagement, nature of content, audience and relationship building measures. That led me to start thinking about how bakeries use social media (shocking, I know.) There I found the big difference – sampling.
When you have the opportunity to bait consumers to take their SM love for your company or brand and establish a real life relationship, you are golden. It seems elementary, but sampling is a great way to distinguish oneself from the competition and generate monetized ROI on your SM investment. Continue reading →
This is a slightly polished version of a similar post that appeared yesterday on PR Cog’s personalblogs.
As some of you have likely heard Twitter recently opened up a system to embedded tweets on web sites, blogs, etc. Initially I thought this could be done well, but had my suspicions, particularly with deleted tweets actually being (more or less) deleted. Unfortunately the worst did happen and as it turns out I’m highly disappointed in the embedded tweets system (though I still love Twitter).
I quote tweets not infrequently and doing screenshots has definitely been a pain in the ass (until I found Screenhunter that is — see post here on that cute lil program).
Here’s my ideal list of what I’d want from an embeddable tweet system: Continue reading →
Over the last few weeks, I’ve worked with the internship committee on helping our interns update their resumes and begin a portfolio. A resume and portfolio should complement each other like peanut butter and jelly. A resume will help you get your foot in the door for a face-to-face meeting but a portfolio gives you an opportunity to really showcase what your experience is. It can truly set you apart from your competition and putting one together is not an easy task. Over the last few years I’ve received some great tips from my mentors that I will share with you here, and hopefully learn some news ones from you. Continue reading →
Any publicist in the midst of a PR campaign for a client has probably asked him- or herself this question: “Is my PR working?” And for a client who’s invested their money in your services, they’re probably asking the same question. Sometimes as publicists, we forget how PR works.
Evaluating a PR campaign based on sales or rate of return is all too typical. But here’s the thing: PR doesn’t work like that; it’s a long-term investment. As a publicist you know this already, but does your client? Sometimes you have to paint a picture for the client about what to expect. You have to make it clear that PR — when done right — will increase awareness of their product, service, book or expertise, to their target audience. And sorry, this doesn’t mean skyrocketing sales right away. Continue reading →
We all wear multiple hats as PR professionals. Thinking about adding some new “roles” to your resume to show off your experience? Here are some to consider (and to be taken lightly):
Therapist
Hand-holding just comes with the territory. Whether it be calming a client down about a less-than-glowing article written about his or her company, or consoling a stressed out co-worker, we give our fair share of “therapy.” I joke that I should have double majored in PR and psychology.
Janitor
We clean up the mess. When things go awry and no one can keep it together, PR professionals are there to clean up after whatever has gone wrong. Continue reading →
As communicators, we work with many different parties. From the marketing team, to C-level executives, the legal team and a whole slew of other internal and external parties, our days and activities can often be filled with balancing a series of discussions, hopes and wishes with a slew of people.
But at a certain point, after many meetings and conversations, we are tasked with writing that next big news release, or a big speech for our CEO or developing our company’s core brand messaging, and that’s where our big work really kicks in: the often never-ending internal/external review process. Continue reading →
In the business world, thinking outside the box is the unofficial motto. In public relations, we’re tasked with being creative thinkers. Our clients want us to find different ways to get in front of influencers and, ultimately, customers.
But we are so quick to focus on what’s next, sometimes we do it at the expense of what’s current. Continue reading →
Some of you may have noticed that my Twitter stream isn’t as robust these days. There aren’t as many blog posts, news articles and conversations flowing. To be rather blunt, I simply haven’t felt like tweeting. I’ve snuck onto the web occasionally and opened the TweetDeck a couple of times, but the ‘new tweet’ alerts haven’t been as alluring. Some days, I’ve felt self-imposed pressure to tweet, as though I wasn’t living up to expectations. Other days, I’ve felt like the site of that demonic little black and red alert box blocking the ability to close documents was more than I could take.
