Posts Tagged with Public Relators
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Stuff like this irks me. According to a study of Australian newspapers, more than 50 percent of the content was “driven by some sort of public relations.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard stats like this, and it’s not even the largest percent I’ve seen. What irks me is the tone. Oh dear God… PR might have an influence on media coverage? Oh the humanity! Those PR people are evil! I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Let’s be real. Without public relations people most organizations, nonprofits, government agencies (even little ones like parks and recreation, human right commissions or your public library), entrepreneurs, start-up companies, etc. would not have a voice in the marketplace of ideas. They wouldn’t be able to tell their stories. If it weren’t for PR people, how would that work? So, yeah, sometimes that takes a press release or a pitch. And sometimes those... Continue Reading
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The PR major in the SOJC is a professionally-focused one. Most students who go into PR understand the importance of perceptions. Or at least they should. And, naturally, our students are concerned with professionalism. Lately, however, I’m beginning to think some are too concerned. Or their emphasis is misplaced. I’m not sure which. But I think it’s worth exploring. Maybe we’ll start with what I think professionalism is not: About (just) what you’re wearing. Your appearance is important, don’t get me wrong. It affects that way you feel about yourself and certainly influences first impressions, but style without substance quickly fades. Rigid or doctrinaire. I hear students admonish each other for not being professional or gossip behind someone’s back about some terrible unprofessional misdeed (first of all, judge not, lest ye be judged…). It’s as if professionalism is the new religion for students. Lack of personalization. Where are YOU in... Continue Reading
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It’s easy to think of cool ways to reach your peers, to identify strategies and tactics for and audiences made up of people who are like you. For most students, that means the temptation to focus on students and how to reach students is strong, even when it doesn’t make sense to include a student focus. But more often than not, public relations campaigns must focus on audiences that are decidedly not like you. Understanding how to reach those audiences takes a skill (a trait?) I don’t think we talk about in public relations much, but I would rank high on the “must haves”: empathy. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s place and understand their feeling, emotions, motivations and values. Many argue it’s a core competency of emotional intelligence, widely seen as crucial to business and leadership success. It’s hard to step outside your comfort zone,... Continue Reading
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I was recently approached by Heather Fornataro of Powder Hound Marketing with an offer of two free tickets to Spamalot in exchange for a tweet or blog post about the show and specifically a tweet or blog with a promotion code for others to get tickets. The show was at our local performing arts center, the Hult Center. It didn’t work out that I was able to take Heather up on the offer – I’d already bought my tickets for the next night.. blah, blah, blah. But on Twitter and in my classes, I heard students chattering about the same offer. So I thought it would be interesting to ask Heather about the promotion and how it turned out. Here’s our Q&A: Q: How did you decide who to reach out to in Eugene with the ticket offer? This was our first time experimenting with this type of outreach and... Continue Reading
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It’s scary to be a university senior right now. In just 6 months, the market will flood with recent graduates clamoring for what could be fewer entry level jobs than we saw in the last few years. I don’t think it matters much what your major is, this is likely to be the reality for a lot of folks. But you’re interested in PR, so does that mean you should forget about working in public relations? After all, the media is dying (say some) and PR departments are downsizing. Well, if your dream is to do traditional media relations in an old school model of public relations… um, yes. Yes, you should forget about PR. However, based on my own experience with a wide variety of clients, as well as watching my students’ careers, I say that if you can come to the table prepared for the PR career of... Continue Reading
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The wide, wide world of social media is great. It’s a great way to build relationships, to have a conversation and to make new connections. However, it’s also uncharted territory for public relations and, well, some of us aren’t doing such a great job. There has been a lot of buzz in the blogosphere lately about the crap that PR people send to bloggers. You can read about it here, here and here (in the posts and in the comments). In fact, Kevin Dugan and Richard Laermer have a whole blog dedicated to PR crap. In most cases, the heavy lamenting about PR is well-deserved, although not well-targeted. The problem is, that there are a lot of good PR people and they are doing really good work. But it’s the crap that seems to be dominating the conversation and creating and overall shift in attitude. You can find lots of... Continue Reading
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Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest healthcare company is suing the American Red Cross. Suing the American Red Cross. Apparently the Red Cross is using the red cross on health & safety kits and J&J claims they have exclusive rights to the red cross. It’s theirs. They were using it first. From its statement. Johnson & Johnson began using the Red Cross design and “Red Cross” word trademarks in 1887, predating the formation of the American Red Cross. J&J brings in $15 billion a year and is demanding that the Red Cross hand over all products for destruction and pay all J&J’s legal expenses, hand over proceeds and pay punitive damages. Liz Gunnison of Daily Brief from Portfolio.com asks this question: So, J&J, exactly how strapped for cash do you need to be to resort to haggling with Hurricane Katrina victims and tsunami survivors over spare change? Really. Wow. Nice... Continue Reading
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The Friendly Ghost has a great post with an Edelman Europe corporate video that makes PR work looking pretty darn exciting: This is a great video, and I am thankful that it’s not PoweR Girls-esque. When more than half of students, it seems, want to do celeb PR or event management, at least this is relatively meaningful stuff. Sign me up!... Permalink
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The Dells, the GMs and even the Marriotts are not the norm when it comes to corporate blogging. In fact, a small percentage of Fortune 500 companies have an external blog. Todd Defren at PR Squared posted recently about his chat with Fortune 500 marketers asking very basic questions about blogging. The good news, he says, is that they are interested and engaged… even cautiously experimental. Over at MicroPersuasion, Steve Rubel talks about the new Forester Research report from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff called Social Technographics. Their research uses the analogy of the participation ladder that looks a little something like this: The majority of people are “inactives” (52%). This group does not read blogs, watch peer-generated video (YouTube, Google Video), listen to podcasts, use social networks (MySpace, Facebook), use RSS, tag Web pages, comment on blogs, publish or maintain a blog, upload video or publish a Web page.... Continue Reading
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