Archive: May 2016

You’re about to lead a pitch meeting with a new client, or present your PR measurement results to your CEO. Has your mouth gone dry? Butterflies fluttering in your stomach? Voice reduced to mouse-squeak level? You may never be able to quell those butterflies—even Frank Sinatra suffered from stage fright—but you can practice certain exercises to get your voice ready even if your stomach may never follow suit.

Social media is clearly a crucial part of any PR strategy, but it’s also a vast and sprawling world comprised of various platforms and countless users and content creators. Many organizations are turning to volunteer spokespeople to meet this challenge—not only to cover more ground, but also because of the authentic passion that a fan of the brand can bring to the conversation.

Twitter is staying committed to its 140-character limit, but in an effort to free up coveted real estate the micro-blogging network announced that it will stop counting media attachments and other content towards its iconic character limit. Many of the changes will allow users to have more control over their messages by doing away with its current practice of factoring in usernames and media attachments to the total character count.

Nervous about speaking in public and worried that it’s holding you back in your PR career? Help is on the way. Effective public speaking is the subject of PR News’ June 23 webinar, which will feature presenters Leticia Ebb of Northrop Grumman Corp., Jonathan Rick of The Jonathan Rick Group and Dan Weckerly of the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board.

At Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, Katie Dowd has a content production powerhouse at her disposal. There’s little doubt that social media has found its place in politics and Dowd is hoping to use her vast online communications experience to not only generate donations, but also utilize her team of content creators to make connections with voters that will last long after the ballots are cast.

Just as communicators are coming to grips with the possibilities of live video on social platforms, Facebook throws us a new twist: It will now allow “nonstop, long-form” live video. The Continuous Live Video option allows for 24/7 broadcasting, although there is no way to rewind the stream or download it.

There have been several years where the San Diego Padres haven’t been tantamount to futility in baseball. Founded in 1969, the club has managed 14 winning seasons and captured the National League pennant twice.

Still, reputations die hard. The Padres, who once played in embarrassing-looking chocolate-brown uniforms, did themselves little good over the weekend, botching an ostensibly positive show of diversity. The incident contains a plethora of PR lessons.

When you look closely at the things and people you’re surrounded by every day at work, do you get the sense that maybe you need to call shenanigans? Are all the portraits hanging in the company lobby of male leaders? Do your team members look and think an awful lot like you? When reviewing a candidate’s resume, do you make assumptions based on the person’s name or address?

To keep up with competition and even stay ahead of the game, PR pros should regularly be leveraging data on behalf of their brands and clients for improved media exposure. While most writers and public relations professionals know that quantitative data helps support an already-strong story, one approach PR pros may not have considered is conducting DIY survey research to help determine what the story should be.

To be an effective and persuasive presenter, you must build trust and believability in the audience’s mind. The goal of presenting is likely to inform the audience of something or persuade it to act or not. To do this successfully, the speaker must be believable and likeable.

Credibility is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. People are not born credible presenters. Credibility is something a speaker must gradually build in the mind of the audience.