Are Marketers Losing Interest in Twitter?

Remember when every blog post and article in AdAge and Mashable was about how great Twitter was for marketers? That seems so 2009, doesn’t it? When was the last time you read a big story on how Twitter is grabbing marketers’ attentions and clients’ interests?

It’s just not happening much anymore. And, as we all know, if something is hot in marketing, we’ll talk it up endlessly, analyze its benefits and potential downfalls and examine every little nook and cranny of what makes something the current/next big thing.

And yet none of that is happening around Twitter. At least not on the scale it was six months ago, and certainly not on the scale of Facebook. Continue reading

Out of Work? Put your PR Skills to Use!

None of us ever want to be unemployed. Unfortunately, the reality is that it happens. I’m one of those who had reality slap me in the face when I was let go from my job last month. Disappointing? Sure. But, it was also a perfect time to refine who I am and what I really want to do.

What did I do?

I spent the first few days developing a plan of action and started to strategize my next steps. Think you can’t do a SWOT analysis on yourself? WRONG! Take any public relations-centered term and you can put it to use in your job search. Here’s what I did in the first weeks of being unemployed. Continue reading

Was the Media Powerful Enough to Convict An Innocent Girl?

I tried to avoid writing this post because it scares me; however after one week of reading magazines and watching the news I simply have to comment on the PR that occurred during the Amanda Knox trial. For those who are unfamiliar, Amanda Knox was studying abroad in Italy in 2007 when she was charged with the murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher.

After being convicted, Knox’s charges were overturned last Monday, Oct. 3 because the evidence was proven to be too weak. Now this scares me for more than just the obvious “murder is scary” or “being innocent and put in jail is terrifying.” No, this story scares me because Amanda Knox and I not only share the same name, the same age, and the same college major, but we look chillingly alike and I was very close to studying abroad in Italy myself. Needless to say I have been following this trial very closely, but I digress. Continue reading

Netflix….Hello? McFly?

Oy. Where do I even start with this PR debacle? For those of you living under a PR rock, the online DVD rental/streaming movie service Netflix has been stumbling and bumbling their way through a series messy PR blunders that stretch over the course of the past year. You remember Netflix right? They’re the company that arguably put Blockbuster and other movie retailers’ bricks and mortar businesses in a coffin, single handedly revolutionizing the DVD/movie streaming market with their service.

Seemingly overnight they changed the way we consumed movies with their near genius marketing strategies and business model leaving many people (*ahem* Blockbuster) twisting in the wind and kicking themselves that they didn’t have the foresight to see the paradigm shift in home movie delivery. But their communications strategy? Uh, hello – McFly? Continue reading

Reminder: The Importance of Research

We’ve all been told since our first day in PR to make sure to do your research before pitching.

But how often is it overlooked for the sake of getting a pitch out before [insert deadline from supervisor]?

Case in point: The Bloggess vs. Brandlink Communications.

Jenny Lawson, aka “The Bloggess” posted about her receipt of an irrelevant pitch more than once, and replied with her standard response for pitches sent from people who clearly did not do their research. Continue reading

Debunking the ‘PR Has Too Much Influence’ Myth

When the Columbia Journalism Review and ProPublica examined the growing value of public relations and its relationship with journalism, the scope of the piece, and the reaction it received from the journalism community were fairly predictable. A rousing chorus of “PR has too much influence” over [fill in the blank] seemed to fill the comments of both CJR.org and ProPublica’s website.

This notion was further advanced in July when New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane explored the role of public relations professionals working with journalists in a blog post titled “PR Professionals: Bane or Boon?

The underlying sentiment in both seems to be that as journalism continues to shed thousands of its craftsmen, while public relations grows rapidly — both in stature and the number of practitioners — there is an overt level of influence being exerted by the latter over the former. And the world is just bad because of that. Continue reading

Marketing Mixers May Need a Cooking Lesson

Lately my boyfriend and I have been getting into cooking. Nothing terribly fancy just yet, but we’ve been cooking homemade meals every night for a couple months now.

Whenever we select a new recipe, I try to read a few reviews and get a sense of what worked and what didn’t from others. Maybe the peanut butter flavor was too overpowering. Sometimes others recommend cooking for a shorter period of time to prevent burning. And many times, I’m left on my own to guess what will taste best.

These recent experiments got me thinking about those of us in charge of building marketing mixes. For the vast majority of brands and companies, throwing all eggs into one basket is a bad idea. We know that, and we know that using just the right mix of channels and tactics is the key to success. Continue reading

PR and “Pressing the Flesh” – Does Physical Presence Count Less than it Used to?

I’ve been getting out more lately. Out meeting clients and prospects at User Conferences and Trade Shows. Out making new contacts, engaging people in conversations and learning more about what makes customers and prospects tick within the vertical markets that we serve.  I’ve been out “pressing the flesh.”

A few years back I was the PR Manager for the State of Maryland’s two 529 college savings plans. If you are unfamiliar with a 529 college savings plan, basically it’s a financial savings investment vehicle with special tax considerations and incentives, designed to encourage saving for children’s future college expenses. My job as the PR Manager for Maryland’s plans was to make sure that:

#1:  the value of saving for future college expenses was top of mind for parents (and grandparents)
#2:  Everyone understood exactly how Maryland’s two 529 college savings plans worked,

It wasn’t an easy task. Continue reading

PR May have Changed but the Core Foundation Remains

Many public relations professionals today do not come from the background as many entry level public relations hopefuls do today. A large number of seasoned professionals did not have a PR internship much less a PR degree.

“I started off in TV production then as the co-producer of a ‘pilot’ entitled “Entertainment Tonight”, says Terri Hartman of Harman Media Group. Finding herself in PR, Hartman added, “PR gives me the opportunity to influence people’s lives through my client’s expertise, services, and personalities.”

These professionals have manned a fax machine for hours and didn’t know what a blog was at the beginning of their career much less have a cell phone. Continue reading