Category Archives: Lee Jones

Speed is Not Always of the Essence

From time to time, in the British Guardian media section there is a tongue-in-cheek ‘Quick Draw McGraw’ award for the PR pro who mails out a press release the fastest after a big on-diary news event ended. Reading one particular sarcastic award recently it was a good reminder to PR of how bad a so-called ‘Quick Draw’ press release can look.

I get that on-diary news is a nice and easy way to bag a few points for the client. A Presidential address, the latest figures from the Fed, annual surveys – everyone knows they are coming, they are usually packed with news and why not get your client’s point of view over to the right target audience? Continue reading

Engage with the Hate

I recently began that much-maligned exercise of apartment hunting with my wife in Minneapolis and if I learned anything from the pursuit (other than a realtor’s idea of ‘spacious’ is from the point of view of the cockroaches) it is that businesses need to engage with hate online.

Much of our hunting utilized social media – we searched ads and sites and used accompanying blogs, tweets and reviews to assess where best to rest our hats. It is safe to say that there is a lot of hate in the social media sphere – from security deposit battles to strange-smelling hallways, the dramas of rental life in the Twin Cities were laid bare online. Continue reading