“People forget we’re a new company. It’s one of those things where, OK, we’re still growing up as a company. Now that we figured that out, there’s no reason to think it’s going to happen again.”
So said a Groupon exec in response to a Financial Times reporter asking about accounting irregularities that have plagued the recently IPO’ed tech startup. Continue reading
In the daily juggle it is sometimes hard to remember to do it all. If you didn’t know it, PR pros are human too. I know that I cross my fingers and hope that when I do forget to do something it is more minor than missing a TV appearance or forgetting to meet a client deadline.
“Organization is critical for success in public relations,” says Michael Hanson, Director of PR at The Modern Brand Company. “PR people are always on the go, juggling multiple pitches, refining infinite messages, brainstorming at all hours of the day, and so on. Sometimes the small things, do make a difference.”
PR pros are constantly focused on big things such as a big media interview, a big event or a big client prospect. Sometimes the smaller things are the tasks that are easier to forget. Continue reading
We at PRBC, and many others have discussed the use of QR codes in marketing programs. It’s likely, as a SM/PR/Marketing community we’ve not only beaten a dead horse, but a dead & buried horse and made the likes of the ASPCA scratch their heads.
So, upon sitting down at a local establishment recently I was somewhat jazzed seeing this display on their table tents. Continue reading
During summer a few years ago, I was on my way to a meeting and I saw something that made me scratch my head. We were going through one of those incredibly dry summers and local watering bans had caused all known forms of vegetation to wither and die. Snapshots of our community could have easily doubled for the Sahara.
Naturally, in the absence of water, all the grass had died and turned brown yet I stood there and watched as a team of landscapers busily cut, trimmed and weed wacked away as if we lived in the tropics during rainy season and the grass had shot up a healthy two inches since their last sweep of the office park.
“For Pete’s sake,” I thought, “why in the world would they spend time cutting grass that was obviously dead?”
2012 was predicted to be the obvious maturation of social media for businesses. Reaching past the “shiny new object” status deeper into data and analytics and into new applications like targeted visual content generation, mobile, and real-time responses, this was the year we all could roll up our sleeves, dig in the garden, and reap the social media crops we had been cultivating for the past few years. Continue reading
Google announced a new partnership last week with Pandora, the New York Daily News, and several other media companies that could be the death of the paywall model. “Google Consumer Surveys” is a stunningly simple idea. Say you’re surfing the web, and click on a link to a story that would typically be behind a paywall. Rather than pay, you answer a simple marketing question, and as a result are granted access to the article. Google pays the entity five cents for each question answered, which is about $15 per 1,000 pageviews.
I’ve long maintained that paywalls are a terrible idea and do nothing but drive potential readers elsewhere. The ROI of putting your content behind a paywall is far less than charging appropriate advertising rates on your site, or other inventive ideas. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself Continue reading
Catching up on reading last night, I saw this article in MarketingLand about a study done on the new Facebook timeline. The use of rich media in Facebook content strategy is paying off – even at the early stages.
While admittedly, a study that involves only 15 participants immediately invites skepticism, nonetheless, the results of the SimplyMeasured early adopter study weren’t surprising. Facebook engagement per post after integration of Timeline for the brands in the study was up on average 46%. Continue reading
I’m old enough to remember the days of bringing a Walkman into my bed at night to try and listen to baseball. On the clearest of nights, I could hear the radio home of the Chicago Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals, and sometimes, the Boston Red Sox from my New Jersey bedroom. However, most times, I’d have to deal with plenty of static and interference.In our social media world today, we have the same issues. While we can “hear” some of the most influential PR/social media/marketing folks, we still need to get through the “static” to actually listen. Why? Our Facebook and Twitter streams are clouded with too much noise and clutter that affects what we take in.
So, how can we better listen and engage our followers? Here are five tips to fine tune your focus on social networks. Continue reading
Lord Tim Bell, head of the U.K.-based PR firm Bell Pottinger, thinks so.
That’s what he told a crowd gathered in Dubai for the recent IPRA Public Relations World Congress and reiterated in an excellent interview with The Holmes Report.
Lord Bell is asked why he feels that public relations has become a “lightning rod for mistrust.” His response is intriguing inasmuch as it provides a nuanced view of a much broader issue afflicting the profession: its reputation within business and society.
Lord Bell sees “no solution to [the] issue,” of public relations’ reputation challenges, he tells The Holmes Report’s Arun Sudhaman, believing that “We [have] become the lightning rod for that mistrust. It is something we have to learn to live with. That makes us an easy target for the media.” Continue reading
Dear Readers –
As we come out of winter hibernations we realized you may have missed a few of our greatest posts (based on traffic). And so, we did some of the heavy lifting for you – below you’ll find our most trafficked posts since 1/1/2012, presented in alpha order. There should be a gem or two in there you missed first time around. Enjoy! Continue reading
Running an independent PR agency can be a rewarding, yet risky business, with a variety of personal and professional challenges, adequate to fill a lifetime of sleepless nights. These include: