Stories by Andrew Blum, AJB Communications

If you’ve been in the PR business for a while, you no doubt have come across a PR request for proposals. An RFP can be an opportunity for your business or it can be a frustrating waste of time. Before you decide if you want to submit a response, you need to think it through and ask a bunch of questions.

Having a high-profile PR client can be exciting and profitable, but it brings with it a number of intangibles and unexpected twists you might not have foreseen. Even though the media wants a high-profile client, and you would think that would be easier than getting publicity for a regular client, these requests often come in bunches and at odd hours.

Litigation PR serves a few purposes: it’s a tactical way for lawyers to help win a case, defend a client against a case or try to influence a case in their client’s favor. It’s also led to a cottage industry in the PR business: the litigation PR specialist.

While litigation PR can also be connected to a crisis with some of the similar skills needed for PR in both instances, it’s a unique subset of PR.

Keeping up with media trends can sometimes feel like a full-time job. Here are a few key trends to look for as PR pros plan their 2016 campaigns.

In PR, your media contacts and their news beats are your lifeline. Being up to date with those is what gets you and your client the outreach and placements you strive for and helps maintain the PR-media relationship.

In order to get a client op-ed published on a significant op-ed page, on a major website or in a key trade publication, you need good strategy, substance and timing.

It’s hard to compete with a huge news story when you’re trying to pitch your brand’s message to the media. Here are some tips to deal with the unexpected.

Readers, viewers, consumers and those who follow social media are all engaged in a fluid, changing environment. What works one day on social media may not work the next.

Making up a plan when a crisis hits will leave you several steps behind as it escalates. Here is how a crisis PR team should be structured to be ready in minutes.

It’s the age-old choice in PR. Do you want to work at an agency or in-house? Here are some thoughts on helping you answer that question.