It’s hard to remember a time when there were no celebrities on Twitter. We used to get all of our juicy gossip from the entertainment rags (or Perez, of course), but now we can hear almost any actor, musician, or athletes innermost thoughts and their impulsive commentary just by following them. While this new system is great for the fans, the problem is that celebrity publicists no longer have any control over what their clients are saying through their feeds. With the media being able to access anything they write, celebrities are having to become their own representation; their personal brand can be affected positively or negatively by each Tweet they send out. Continue reading
Your Copy Sucks: NaNoWriMo
It’s November, which means NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).
NaNoWriMo can also be called “the month where all your wordy friends disappear from the planet.”
If you’ve never heard of it, here’s the scoop: for the month of November, participants sign up for the NaNo challenge. Their goal is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month. Some quick math reveals that this means writing a little under 2,000 words a day on average, and that doesn’t sound very difficult. Continue reading
Twitter Ratios & Profile Builders: A Message Thread
Editor’s Note: As some of you know the PRBC founding bloggers exchange e-mails quite a bit. On most workdays we trade between 150-200 msgs per day. We talk about everything – potential posts (seeking input and conflict checking), insight on an outlet, formal PRBC events, informal area events all the way to dinner plans and what one should wear to one of these events. It’s really a bit scary.
This entire post started with a brainstorming e-mail after I happened to see a GMail ad for a twitter profile builder. This one happened to intrigue me (the ad was well written). And so … in most of its glory, most of its ‘rough around the edgedness’ and edited for readability, part of our message thread. From the first message to the last one included here a total of 1 hour and 1 minute passed.~Cog Continue reading
Coffee Talk with the Winners of #PRStudChat Challenge
On October 21st over 409 participants joined in the #PRStudChat Challenge. This challenge was organized by Deidre Breakenridge and Valerie Simon. The conversation consisted of students, professors, and PR pros with Christine Perkett as a special guest. Over 40 schools participated but the winning school, with the most contributors, was the University of Maryland. After the challenge, I got the chance to chat with Assistant Professor Brooke Fisher Liu and Lecturer Susan Whyte Simon about UMD’s communication program and how they integrate social media into their students’ education. There will also be a part two of this interview with two public relations students from UMD. Continue reading
The disease of Twitter…
Dear Twitter,
How could you do this to me? I was a huge supporter of you, I loved you. I converted so many people to join you. I went through hundreds of people laughing at me and dealing with phrases like “Who Tweets?” Yet, I still prevailed and kept on tweeting. Twitter has been an amazing time for me. I absolutely love it, and have made some great friends from around the United States, England, and even Australia! Continue reading
Mentoring PR’s Generation-Next Can Produce Superstars!
In my six plus years in the PR “world” a number of friends have shared their Devil Wears Prada like horror stories about the competitive nature of this industry among their colleagues and managers. For these friends, sharing media contacts is taboo, asking questions of your boss/team lead to make sure you understand an assignment is blasphemy and supporting the success of your team mates is unheard of. With that kind of thought process who would want to build their career in this field? Continue reading
They’re’s a problem with are grammar
Alright folks, I know using Twitter and email is all about speed and brevity, but their are sum things that our simply inexcusable for communications professionals.
Before getting into it, a few notes. Continue reading
Gray Hat SEO
Having your blog or Web site rank high in search engine is essentially a guaranteed way to convert sales. But as a PR person, how can you help your clients achieve number-one ranking nirvana?
While at the recent BlogWorld Expo, I sat in on a session that proposed the creation of a network of blogs with content specific to the various products or services your client sells. Relevant key words in the blogs’ titles and content will help it rank so that it does not dilute the keywords in other articles. The strategic use of keyword specific anchor text and linking structures will help as well. Continue reading
Your Copy Sucks: Stealing is Uncool
Wow. Guys. Did we really need to sit down and talk about how you probably shouldn’t steal? Man, I guess we do.
So here it goes: when you steal words, pictures, or ideas from other people, especially people who live in the constantly well-documented world of the blogosphere, you’re not being cool. Continue reading
Does your firm work as a team?
When I had my first interview with Co-Communications, Account Manager Danielle Cyr, looked me straight in the eye with an icy glare and said: “We are not competitive here. Are you competitive?”
After I almost wet myself out of sheer fear of Danielle (we are best buds now, don’t worry!), I thought “yeah, I am competitive! I used to dance, horseback ride, play the violin, compete in pageants. I love competition.”
Danielle went on to further explain. She had seen the ugly-side of competitive at other jobs. She had seen cutthroat, death-stare, whispering behind backs competition. Continue reading