In 2011-2012, The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conducted a crowdsourcing campaign to effectively boil down the definition of public relations into a clear, modern message: “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually...
PR managers beware: Are your employees using the “fake reply” gimmick?
One of my biggest pet peeves about PR is the "fake reply." This is a tactic wherein a PR person sends a follow-up email with "Re:" in the subject line, making it appear that we have an existing relationship and that they're replying to an email from me. I first...
Powerball and the importance of issues management
If a well-thought-out strategic plan is in place and an organization has the capabilities to support it, it will allows the organization to adapt both to opportunities and issues that present themselves. But what does all this have to do with Powerball?
Beware the dangers of name-dropping when pitching top-tier journalists
Journalists, especially at the A-list outlets, are a competitive bunch. They live for the scoop, the exclusive, or at a minimum, the unique angle on a widely reported story. Based on feedback we've heard from journalists, this point seems to be lost by a certain...
5 key questions to ask when planning an earned media strategy
You may have heard of the term “earned media” being thrown around while reading marketing or PR industry news. Just what is it, and should you focus in on it? Or is it just another buzz term the industry grabs onto to generate interest? Let’s dig into the topic to see...
PR lessons from “Making a Murderer”
Reporters are feverishly conducting interviews, trying to uncover new pieces of the Teresa Halbach Murder puzzle. Popular media outlets like People magazine are reporting new conspiracies surrounding Steven Avery’s case. Social media is exploding with fan theories as...
Pitching the press in 2016: The secret sauce of media relations
Media relations is only one piece of the public relations pie—strategy, planning, research, content, writing, social media, events, activations, monitoring and reporting fill up much of the rest. However, one of the main reasons PR professionals are hired is for media...
Media relations by the numbers: How to know when to stop pitching
When you’re a small company trying to get into the news, media placements are really just a numbers game. At some point, you can even start to predict how many pitches it will take per hit. If one in every 20 reporters finds your story compelling, but you know you...
What every PR professional should know about pitching bloggers
Would you like more bloggers to say “Yes!” to your pitches? These four tips will help increase your rate of success. 1. All Bloggers Are Not Equal Some blogs are written just for fun, while others are the blogger’s primary source of income. The blogger who blogs for...
PR and the power of “No”
Some of my favorite conversations with PR practitioners have started with discussing the “people pleaser” issue. In PR, your life revolves around keeping everyone happy: your clients, your contacts, your colleagues, and even your vendors. Here, Abbe Buck, a 30-year...
Are newswire services dying or evolving?
I recently conducted a Twitter poll and asked a simple question: “Do you use a wire service for press release distribution?” One hundred percent of the responses replied no. Actually, there was only one response. So we can discard the scientific validity of the poll....
How PR pros in the health space can help prevent public misinformation
When it comes to health education, there’s no such thing as too much. This has been made abundantly clear every time we lurch toward another health crisis. In 2014, widespread panic surrounded the much-publicized Ebola outbreak in West Africa. As researchers scrambled...