They say silence is golden. True, if you’re looking out over the Grand Canyon during a beautiful sunrise. But in the world of high-stakes media, silence is often a man’s worst friend. Yet, coming from a sports PR background, I’ve seen countless athletes, coaches and owners/administrators try to stymie the inevitable with pure silence. And in almost every case, it comes back to haunt them . . . big time. Continue reading
All posts by Keith Trivitt
Beating the Holiday Blues: What Motivates You?
With the holidays nearly upon us, that can mean only one thing: No, not the delirious joy of gifts, treats and many days off from school that a little kid surely feels, but instead, the dreaded gloom of holiday shopping, fighting insane traffic and with multiple stresses at work and home as you try to get everything done before the mad dash of the great trifecta of family, friends and food overtakes you.
Lost in all of that is the fact that this can be a really difficult time for many. It can even be downright depressing, with the awful weather and the realization that it is at least five or six long months until summer begins. So in a professional service world of PR/marketing/advertising, staying motivated and enthusiastic for what lies ahead can be a bit difficult. Continue reading
Dear Oprah (Part 1)…
Dear Oprah:
You had a great career, but you failed in this one regard: You never got that really cool audience “we are so in the moment” thing going. Arsenio’s crowd had their “whoops” and fist pumps and Jerry Springer’s crowd was fond of the “JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!” chants. Your crowd? Nada. Nothing. Just sat there crying or going crazy each time you schleped another sponsor’s product for free.
Boring.
Cheers,
Keith
Personal Branding in a Service Industry
Recently, the PRBC crew had the pleasure of chiming in—as an entire group via Google Documents—on a series of questions regarding the blending of public relations and social media (one of my favorite subjects to discuss) on Lauren Fernandez’s LAF blog. The first set of questions dealt with what effect we all thought social media has had on the public relations industry.
You can read all of our responses here, but a comment by our good friend Jay Keith really sparked something in me. Jay was discussing his distaste for the exponential increase in so-called “experts” who are now online. Continue reading
Seeing Opportunities in the Face of Fear
I want to take a moment to step aside from some of my previous discussions about the technology behind what is guiding us into a new era of communications and my ruminations on why I can’t stand the term “blogger relations” to discuss something far more personal to me: fear. Specifically, how my fears shape and alter my personal and professional goals and convictions. Continue reading
Is Social Media Really Helping Your Business Grow?
During another one of my random midday reads of interesting social media news and tidbits, I came across this fantastic BusinessWeek poll of CMOs. The big takeaway for me was that most CMOs think social media agencies are completely full of s***. Most agreed that those agencies have a pretty good understanding of what can be done with social media, the CMOs that were polled also noted that many of the social media agencies they have dealt with have no clue about business, the nuances of their client’s industry, who their clients’ competitors are or how social media can help a business get ahead of its competitors. Continue reading
Bing/Twitter Search is a Giant Cluster
This is what happens when a great search engine that appears to have its head on straight (Bing) teams up with a company that has little clue about how to not implode on itself (Twitter): Bing/Twitter search (just went live in Beta):
On first glance, my initial thought was: This is awful. Seriously, just awful. Ask my #prbc friends. I wasn’t happy with the product. Basically, I thought Bing and Twitter had gotten together and created a giant cluster of links, tweets and people’s Twitter handles. Basically, there was no structure or coherent approach to how to effectively utilize and manage this new search feature. Continue reading
The Fallacy of “Blogger Relations”
I’ve never really had a problem being a little unconventional with my thinking, so I’m going to go ahead and say what some in the PR business may consider blasphemy: To me, the term “blogger relations” is a bunch of BS.
It’s not that I have a problem with actually reaching out to and effectively working with bloggers. I am completely for that, and embrace those types of relationships each day with my work. My problem stems from the fact that those of us in PR have even had to take the time to create a new term for the type of relationships and media outreach we should have been doing all along with EVERY type of media, not just bloggers. Continue reading
Your Audience is More Than One
Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar to you:
PR/Marketing Guy: So tell me, Mr. X, who is your company’s audience? Who is interested in what the Widget Factory has to offer?
Mr. X: Well, we consider our audience to be widget consumers, widget manufacturers, those who work in the widget industry and our own internal employees.
PR/Marketing Guy: Sounds like quite a diverse group. How will you be alerting all of these individual and distinct audiences of your upcoming big company announcement?
Mr. X: We were going to do what we always do: Blast out a generic e-mail announcement that goes to that entire group. That way, they all get the same exact message.
PR/Marketing Guy:
Frustrating? You bet. An exaggeration? Sadly, not even close.
Continue reading
The PR Education Revolution
The very smart Heather Whaling asked on her blog Wednesday whether social media begets mainstream coverage. Now, for me, that gets my attention, because a) it’s totally up the alley of my passion within the PR business (namely, the integration of traditional PR and social media PR; and b) it’s a question that I think we are going to start asking ourselves a lot more in the coming months.
Continue reading