Category Archives: Uncategorized

Marie Baker, Uncategorized

Am I too emotional for PR

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Ugh, remind me again why I check my blackberry at 10:00 o’clock at night? I know that I am running the risk of encountering a work e-mail, which likely will result in another restless night and a step closer to my bottle of sleeping pills.

But, I did it; I read the e-mail, a very nasty e-mail at that. A segment I pitched for a client went terribly wrong because, as you know, the media has creative license to produce whatever type of story it wants. Sometimes this works in our favor, sometimes it doesn’t.

The client was very unhappy, and boy, did I hear about it! I cried. That’s right, I cried a lot. I know as a publicist, you aren’t supposed to take things personally, but I do.

In fact, I guess you could say I’m an overly sensitive person.

Whether it’s screaming reporters, rude clients, shouting bosses or the general frustration of pitching, as a publicist you are expected to put on your brave face and just grin and bare it.

But at the end of the day, when I’m at home, behind closed doors, that tough façade breaks down. I am left confused, upset and wondering to myself: is a job in public relations right for me?

Granted, on the scale between one and ten (ten being a total emotional wuss), I place myself at a nine. I envy those publicists that aren’t bothered by the stress, the yelling, the segments gone awry.

Here today, I admit that I am affected by those things, and I think that there are others out there like me.

Crying isn’t a popular topic amongst the PR discussion circles. Why? Perhaps it’s because we are embarrassed, or it is the fact that we don’t want our employer (or future employer) to think any less of us. Maybe we are just afraid that others will assume we can’t handle our jobs.

I know it’s easy to tell someone “Hey, just shrug it off,” but that is just another case of easier said than done. I always thought that my emotions would be the downfall of my career, and it has definitely not been an easy battle to fight.

However, I think the fact that I care so much, maybe too much, means that I am a good publicist. If my client isn’t happy, I want to find out why and work towards a resolution.

I want to do the best job I can possibly do. If I accidentally send an e-mail to the wrong person, I get mad at myself and then vow to never make that mistake again. What I’m trying to do is be a better publicist than I was the day before.

This wasn’t meant as a “woe is me” post. My intent was to spark the conversation, to say, “Hey, it’s okay to cry and not be ashamed.” While you may feel humiliated and others see crying as a weakness; just know that you aren’t alone.

No matter how many tissue boxes I go through, I march on. At the end of the day, when I’m sitting behind my closed doors, my eyes filled with tears, I can’t think of another job that is as challenging, as exciting and ultimately as enlightening as public relations.

So, I want to hear your story. Are you an emotional publicist? Do you think that it helps or hinder your ability to do your job?

Kate Ottavio, Uncategorized

You don’t know me!

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No, seriously, you don’t. You might have a clue about the ballpark range of my age because of my photo here, you know where I work (because I’ve told you), and you know that I at least have a degree in Public Relations.

So why are you still reading this post? Who says I’m the authority here?

Allow me to explain the questions I pose . . . .

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Nathan "PRCog" Burgess, Uncategorized

This Week’s Top 5 Posts

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Welcome to the conclusion of Week 1 of PRBreakfastClub.com.  It’s been a great week for us here and on #prbc.  We hope you’ve enjoyed our content, banter, and anything else you may have found of value (music, pictures, literature, fashion tips…whatever it may be).

In case you’re concerned you missed a crucial post this week, I present to you, in alphabetical order (because I like to keep a bit of mystery in all our lives) this week’s Top 5 posts.

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Nathan "PRCog" Burgess, Uncategorized

Ethics…you mean there are ethics?

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ms. Campbell, who was kind enough to grace me with her xomapny at dinner last week along w/ ms. Vallejo and ms sena, recently brought us this blog post addressing ethics in our chosen profession — the great world of public relations in it’s various forms.
as in many other fields there are some bright lines that we dare nit cross. then there are those ethically grey areas. yes(!) — there can be ethically grey areas, not evwrythjng is black or white. these usually pop up when our own ethical rules for various areas of our life come into conflict and we must step up and make that decision of what/which is most important to us.
first let’s understand that ethics is diferejt than morality and differnt than legality. that could be (and is likely) the topic of thousands of blog posts (an dissertations). but for the purpose of separating the issues consider a physician in a state that does not permit assisted suicide.  certainly the doxtor’s priority is healing the sick, but in circumstances where that is a lost cause where does the physician’s duty lie — to his science to continue treating the untreatable or to end the suffering of his patient in any way he can.
certainly our own issues are rarely this dire but on a near daily basis we can potentilly confronted with issues where our various duties lie in conflict.
I do work with accounkng firms. not infrequently they’re called upon to present expert pinion on relevant topics.

This one’s in response (expansion) to a post from the lovely Ms. Campbell (@prsoapbox), who was kind enough to grace me with her company at dinner last week along with Ms. Vallejo and Ms. Sena. She recently brought us this blog post addressing the ethics in our chosen profession—the great world of public relations in its various forms.

As in many other fields, there are some bright lines that we dare not cross. Then there are those ethically grey areas.  Yes (!)—there can be ethically grey areas, not everything is easily placed on a black or white square. These usually pop up when our own ethical rules for various areas of our life (personal and professional) come into conflict and we must step up and make the decision of what/which is most important to us.

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Sherri Haymond, Uncategorized

What’s a Girl Like Me Doing Writing for a Blog Like This?

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I’m sure all many of you are asking just that question—a former lawyer, banker, and hedge fund analyst who’s now running her own walkie-talkie rental company—what in the world is she doing writing for a PR blog?
Just a short while ago, when I decided to work on What’s Your Twenty, Inc. <http://www.twitter.com/WY20> full-time, I realized I was taking on a massive task—our walkie rental biz was primarily servicing the production industry, where my husband and our other partner have been producing for 10+ years. They already had their network. I decided I wanted to expand our clientele beyond production, into special events, meetings, fashion shows, trade shows, conventions, catering (colloquially, “events”), and anything else I could think of. I wanted to be huge. And quick. But I had a law and finance background. How in the world would I break into the events space? Let alone quickly? I first took stock of my local competitors—some are fairly large, but none are “branded.” They’re not involved in social media, they don’t have interactive websites, they don’t blog. I recognized a huge opportunity.
Enter my friend Stephanie Smirnov <http://www.twitter.com/ssmirnov>.
She’s the president at a really well-respected, top-tier PR firm in NYC. I think we got to know each other through common Twitter mom
friends (since we’re both moms to boys and we both work, we had a lot in common from the get-go). I started reading Stephanie’s blog
<http://ssmirnov.wordpress.com/>—a perfect entree into the PR world since she writes not only about PR, but also about mom stuff, popular
culture, etc.—I’d ease my way in. I liked what I saw. And so I started to follow some of the PR folks that Stephanie was following. One of those people was our own @PRCog.
But let’s back up for a moment. Around this time I began to realize that I’ve always been interested in public relations. I’ve been doing
my own personal PR since elementary school! (Get good grades and everyone thinks you’re a goodie two-shoes . . . you get where I’m going
with this). My job as my own personal PR manager became much more difficult (and ridiculously more important) in the highly political
worlds of law firm and i-banker life—you spend a large part of your day at jobs like that managing your reputation. You check and double
check the tone, substance, and syntax of your emails; you make sure not to make the “cc” instead of “bcc” mistake; you “pitch” to get on the
best deals for the best clients with the best colleagues; you manage your online reputation to make sure no incriminating pictures or stories or mentions ever pop up when someone Googles you; you network with the right people so that eventually you can get out of the job you’re trying so hard to keep but that you never really loved in the first place. Geez—I’d been doing this all along! And perhaps not everyone does . . . but I strongly believe that everyone should.
What’s Your Twenty is a start-up—I had exactly zero marketing dollars to spend, let alone money to hire a PR firm to help me launch my “brand.” So I decided I’d take on the task myself. I started chatting with @PRCog, continuing my conversations with Stephanie and many of the great flacks she’s introduced me to, and heard about this event called Masquertweet. For those of you who don’t already know, @PRCog is a real person who’s completely anonymous on Twitter. So he and a few other flacks put together a tweet-up for [mainly] PR folks where everyone was invited to wear a mask—sort of showing support for Cog’s [literally] masked identity. This was an incredible networking opportunity (and to boot, there was a charity tie-in with 12for12k <http://12for12k.org/>, which I always love), and so I went. All. By. Myself. [Note—Stephanie was awesome and introduced me to a bunch of amazing people before via Twitter, all of whom I’m now friends with IRL!]
It was at Masquertweet that I met many of the authors who write on this very blog. After the event, I started to read many of their blogs, and to read blogs written by other PR superstars who were recommended to me. I started to learn the lingo. I started to read articles. And I started to tweet about my PR studies with the original members of the PRBreakfastclub. I’m learning as I go—but already, I’m finding success (more about that coming soon—but suffice it to say, I’ve already gotten myself press!). And in my articles each week, I’ll try the best I can to teach you how to do PR for your own small business, too. You’re gonna love it.

I’m sure all many of you are asking just that question—a former lawyer, banker, and hedge fund analyst who’s now running her own walkie-talkie rental company—what in the world is she doing writing for a PR blog?

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Heather Dueitt, Uncategorized

Street Dish: The Reality of Public Relations

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Scene 1: Camera One pans to girls at door.  A faint voice states “thirty seconds till we air.” Final checks in place, Louboutins(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Louboutin) (check), black dress (check), clipboard (check), stern look (check.)  Let’s roll, 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . air.
Camera Two pans to X celebrity arriving in the black sedan and walks up to red carpet; she stops to pose for a few photos to hear cat-calling from paparazzi in the galley.  Cut to second scene.
Scene 2: Louboutin-wearing girls hovering around a VIP table having a cocktail (yes, at their own event) and hanging out with their friends they snuck in.  Drama begins to unfold.  Cut, end scene.
Okay, how many of us have watched reality and primetime television shows where this act is played over and over again? (Pause for all PR people to verbally grunt at the computer.) Exactly.
Recent turmoil has been unleashed in response to Kim Kardashian’s announcement (http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20300835,00.html) of a PR reality show appropriately reported on People.com.  My immediate reaction was frustration and defense of the PR industry as a whole.  Then I wrote this blog post.  While my first draft is lying nicely in my trash can, I came to a realization that I can see the glass half full on this matter.  Please hear me out.
As Lauren Fernandez eloquently pointed out in her blog post (http://laurenafernandez.com/2009/08/31/the-difference-between-pr-and-publicity/ ) Monday, Publicity is different from PR. I concur on this matter with a footnote that publicity is still a form of public relations and has proven successful for corporate clients as well as the entertainment industry.
As I was emotionally ranting of the frustrations that PR is not just red carpets, designer duds, and celebrities, I found myself being a hypocrite.  Currently I finished a publicity/PR event that involved step and repeats while wearing a designer dress and shoes, clipboard in tow, and there was a celebrity involved.  How is this any different?  No, I am not having cocktails with J-Lo and having Versace designers knocking on my door with free gifts, but in some form I am producing the same type of a publicity event and exceeding the client’s expectations in the process. While my background primarily lies in events and launches, my day-to-day public relations duties consist of social media, writing, networking, and all the normal corporate communications.
Publicity events for corporate clients with celebrities, red carpets, and features in magazines are only the icing on the cake for this form of public relations.  Sure, the drama surrounding the on-site events holds the sex appeal to draw millions of viewers, but as PR professionals we all know where the REAL drama lies: behind the scenes.   I believe this is the sore spot with everyone in this industry.  Where are the cameras when the nuts and bolts to the campaign or event are being born?  Brainstorming sessions conducted a la Mad Men style (in no reference to Sunday’s episode), ideas being pitched to clients, hundreds of creative design ideas for invitations, step and repeats, Web sites, logos, press releases being written (and the twenty revisions), media lists compiled, talent negotiations, do I really need to keep going?  I think we understand all the hard work that happens behind the scenes that makes PR and publicity campaigns work.
So, one may ask, “Why are these scenes edited?” My guess: viewers, money, advertisement dollars, and TV executives.  Outside of the PR industry, we would lose the general public on the first draft of a press release.  The producers, and general public, want the glitz and glamor.  Is this necessarily the “right” thing to do? No, but PR isn’t the only industry in the same boat.  What about “Making the Band”( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_the_Band) and “Project Runway?” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Runway) Is it really this easy to get a record label or a four-page feature in a major fashion magazine for up-and-coming artists? Are all the steps and dirty laundry revealed? No! Why? Million dollar word: viewers!
Bottom Line:
While some view publicity as Louboutin-wearing blondes with a clipboard obsession, publicity is a form of media relations that has proven successful for many clients.  Our problem lies more in the lack of education to the public on the different sectors that lie within the PR industry.  Trust me that a successful publicity event uses as much communication as a traditional press release launch, plus a few side orders of event logistics.  Now, I can’t say the individuals participating in Kim’s reality show hold these same standards, but they shouldn’t be held as the poster children to the Publicity ring either.
Therefore, PR flacks, I challenge you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the drama that someone else will be experiencing and revel in the fact you are sitting on the couch when their talent says the wrong name of the product!

Scene 1: Camera One pans to girls at door.  A faint voice states “thirty seconds till we air.” Final checks in place, Louboutins (check), black dress (check), clipboard (check), stern look (check.) Let’s roll, 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . air.

Camera Two pans to X celebrity arriving in the black sedan and walks up to red carpet; she stops to pose for a few photos to hear cat-calling from paparazzi in the galley.  Cut to second scene.

Scene 2: Louboutin-wearing girls hovering around a VIP table having a cocktail (yes, at their own event) and hanging out with their friends they snuck in.  Drama begins to unfold.  Cut, end scene.

Okay, how many of us have watched reality and primetime television shows where this act is played over and over again? (Pause for all PR people to verbally grunt at the computer.) Exactly.

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Keith Trivitt, Uncategorized

Before You Ridicule Each Other, Think of Helping Others

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I should probably start this post by noting that I’m an eternal optimist . . . I look at the bright side of practically everything, so if that isn’t your style, you may just want to skip this post. OK, that’s out of the way, here we go!
Maybe it’s the “dog days” of summer still, or the fact that we’re still mired in a major recession that has everyone in a tizzy and seemingly at each other’s throats in the PR business when almost every minor situation that arises. Accidentally blast out an e-mail to thousands of people and forget to use the very helpful—but often misused—BCC function? Boom! You’re facing at least a week of full-on ridicule from your own brethren.  For many of us, it can get to be a bit too much sometimes.
I know for myself, I didn’t get into this business to ridicule colleagues. I actually want to see others in this business succeed, so when a big—or little—slipup happens, I usually try to give my quick two cents, offer some advice on how to move on, and generally stay out of the situation. By no means am I perfect, and I will be the first to admit that I am still eagerly learning as much as I can about PR (I come from a sport management background), so to me, I’d rather focus on the positives.
And that’s really the point of this whole post: We—the collective whole of the PR industry—have SO much good to offer, both to clients and our employers, that it really does not make a lot of sense, nor help at all, to constantly ridicule each other’s mistakes. And we’re awful about this. There is a sector of this business that almost seems to find amusement in ridiculing each other. How exactly that is helping to advance our business is beyond me.
It’s also a whole hell of a lot of wasted time and energy, and in a recession, can we really afford to waste either?
For me, I got into this business because I love to help others. Now working on the client side after five years working in college athletic media relations, my great thrill and enjoyment is finding a way to help the overall business efforts of my clients. Even if it is as simple as helping a client reach 10 more influential customers one week, then I’m ecstatic because I have helped someone beyond just myself.
Folks, we work in a service industry and, therefore, our top priority (at least in my opinion) should be focused on how we can help others. If you’re on the agency side, it’s how can you help your clients’ business. If you’re an internal PR person, it’s how can you help your organization best reach its customers and target audiences, and, more so now through social media, how can you drive customer engagement efforts. In short, think about how much good we can do for others when we truly focus our energies on doing just that, rather than constantly looking for the next 140-character zinger to tweet about.
So now I ask you: Why did you get into PR? What’s your favorite part of the business? What has you jazzed and excited to work every day?

I should probably start this post by noting that I’m an eternal optimist . . . I look at the bright side of practically everything, so if that isn’t your style, you may just want to skip this post. OK, that’s out of the way, here we go!PBJ

Maybe it’s the “dog days” of summer still, or the fact that we’re still mired in a major recession that has everyone in a tizzy and seemingly at each other’s throats in the PR business when almost every minor situation that arises. Accidentally blast out an e-mail to thousands of people and forget to use the very helpful—but often misused—BCC function? Boom! You’re facing at least a week of full-on ridicule from your own brethren.  For many of us, it can get to be a bit too much sometimes.

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