Tag Archives: PR

Christina Khoury

Word Vomit: Topics That Are Better Left Unsaid

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(CC) Image courtesy theritters

The social aspect of  communications is one of the many reasons I was attracted to working in public relations.  It’s also one of the many reasons why I love Twitter.  I’ve attended many tweets up and happy hours simply to meet some of my favorite people.  Heck, I even drove with Kate and TJ to visit some fabulous friends in Boston who at the time I only knew via Twitter.

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed an excessive amount of “word vomit,” the act of putting one’s foot in thy mouth, at these tweet ups and happy hours that made me second guess the information I divulge when first meeting someone.  We may talk to each other every day but do we really trust each other?  How much word vomit is just too much before others start judging?  When networking or socializing with new friends here are some topics you may want to exclude: Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

The Impending Data Deluge

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(CC) Courtesy akash_k

I recently returned from the PRSA International Conference in Washington, D.C. (full disclosure: I am employed by PRSA), where much of the focus was on social media and enhancing the strategic value of public relations. What struck me most about the sessions was how few of them were geared toward the once-hot topics of “Social Media is Great!,” or “This Social Media Thing is A Fad.” Instead, a majority focused on a similar theme: “Social media has revitalized the PR profession . . . now what do we do with all of this data?!

That strikes at the heart of the next great movement for public relations. The need to understand, analyze and utilize the vast array of data, sentiment analysis and other metrics gathered from social media. Continue reading →

Nathan "PRCog" Burgess

Snap Them Out of It

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Beach Ball in the AirMomentum, or what some think of as Newton’s First Law of Motion, “Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion (constant velocity) unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force,” not only applies to “every body” in motion but also to everybody.

Success begets success – it’s that x factor that helps makes great salesmen phenomenal and bad ones lousy.

It’s also the factor that makes the downer client or co-worker the downer on all occasions.  They start their day off badly and by 10a are dragging everyone else down.

The opposite is also true, so all is not lost.  There’s always (hopefully) one person in an office that can crack a joke at the worst situation and provide the best way out of the mess.  We could all use more of them. Continue reading →

Jeff Esposito

What does PR mean to you?

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Girl using cookie cutterOver the past few weeks I’ve been trying to get a handle on what PR had become to me.  The industry is in a state of flux and evolution. Instead of the old fare cup of coffee industry that we grew up in the current state is robust with flavors that would make Starbucks blush.

With many PR folks taking the helm of social networking (SN) activities, I’ve also wondered if PR was the correct term for the industry as the space blends PR with many other disciplines like customer service, sales and word-of-mouth marketing.

I asked folks in the #PRBC discussion what PR meant to them and really just got back a handful of generic cookie cutter answers that reflected what the industry used to be. Continue reading →

Manny Otiko

PR Jobs Require More than Good Writing Skills: Ex-journos find life is not so easy on ‘The Dark Side’

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Hands breaking pencilAn old joke in the PR business is that all reporters hate PR people – until they need a job. Then you’re the first person they call. Public relations would seem like a natural extension of the skills you acquire in journalism — writing, news judgment, editing and graphic design.

However, the PR business has taken a huge hit over the last few years, and many laid-off journos are finding that those PR positions, which they hoped to move into, are just not there anymore.

When the economy plunged into a recession one of the first areas that companies cut back on was marketing and public relations. In addition, when business credit dried up many companies simply could not afford the monthly retainer for a PR firm. And for the few PR jobs that do exist, journos are having to compete against recent college grads, who are often more attractive because they are cheaper to hire. In many cases these jobs have been turned into non-paying internship positions. (That is a whole column itself.) Continue reading →

Rebecca Denison

Using Metrics to Reduce Uncertainty

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Ruler with imperial and metric measurementsSometimes we all get too caught up in perfection. If you work on that report 10 minutes longer, will it be closer to perfect? If you search one more time, will you find every single mention of your brand or company across the Web? There’s a point at which additional effort isn’t worth the reward.

I often find that there is a misconception about the purpose of measurement. Whether in PR or social media or physics, for that matter, the purpose of measurement is to reduce uncertainty. Note the word “reduce.” Continue reading →

Nathan "PRCog" Burgess

You’re doing it wrong….

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Wrong WayWe’ve all seen the horrible horrible examples of things done wrong in the digital world.  You know the things I’m talking about – bad policies, bad designs, just bad bad bad stuff.  Below, you’ll find my own list of the worst of the worst and those of some other contributors crowdsourced from Twitter.  Do chime in with your own net horror stories 🙂

Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

Walk The Line

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Scale of justice, close-upA few weeks ago, I discussed some of the ongoing debate and insight within the PR profession about demonstrating our value among C-level executives. I wanted to dig into that subject a little further (it’s a personal interest of mine) with some fascinating research I found in MIT’s Sloan Management Review.

In an article published in the Summer 2010 issue, Larry Styble and Maryanne Peabody, co-founders of Boston-based management firm Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire, address which types of employees and executives CEOs gravitate toward.

The authors’ basic point is that for many successful CEOs, who they align themselves with within their executive suite often comes down to assets and liabilities. That’s right; in a way, we can boil down the value of any company’s executives to whether they see the world as full of opportunities (asset enhancement) or full of threats (liabilities reduction). Continue reading →

Tory Patrick

Do you know what people are saying about you?

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From Blaugh.com

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

How does this relate to public relations? Well, if you aren’t monitoring and measuring the World Wide Web, does that mean people aren’t talking about you?

Nope.

One of the most difficult parts of PR is that you cannot control what others say about you and your clients. If what they are saying is good, well then by all means, let them sing your praises from the rooftops! If what they are saying is bad, what can you do? And how can you do anything if you don’t even know it’s out there?

­­­­But how exactly can you measure something as vast as the Internet? Continue reading →

Manny Otiko

Media Disasters Prove that PR Professionals are Needed

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Business man sitting before documents and phoningI often say that no one understands why a media relations representative is important until they are in the middle of a PR disaster. This realization is something that might be going through the mind of rap musician Wacka Flocka.

Mr. Flocka has recently become an Internet cause célèbre because of his less than inspiring interview on a BET show. During the show, Flocka stumbled and mumbled through his way through an interview and then dropped this gem. When asked about the November elections, he said, “Voting cool, voting good, … but I don’t know nothing about that s***!” (His words, not mine.)

There are so many things wrong with this media disaster. First of all, didn’t anybody prepare this guy for his interview, and didn’t anyone ask the interviewers what kind of questions they were going to focus on? And why would the interviewers ask a rapper, who can barely string together an intelligent sentence, what he thinks about the upcoming Mid-Terms? That’s like asking a vegan for directions to a good steak house. Continue reading →