PR Insiders

Many people are talking about Apple’s HomePod, the monolithic and intelligent home speaker the brand unveiled at its Worldwide Developers Conference June 5. With an enviable acoustic and its ability to answer questions about music (“Who’s the guitar player on this track?”), HomePod ($349) can be a nice addition to the home. What about its significance for PR & communications? Maybe that comes down the road. For something from Apple that might have a more immediate meaning for communicators, you need to look at another announcement it made.

For some, the traditional press release is in intensive care, fighting for its life in a world of spammed inboxes and 140-character tweets. Others argue the garden-variety press release works just fine, thank you. Perhaps a compromise position is that the traditional press release must adapt to compete in today’s digital environment. Here are tips from PR pros to help you create releases that will entice writers and editors.

In an essay that’s far different than your deep dive at the office, a scuba enthusiast, who’s also a PR exec , relates lessons learned 130-feet underwater that you can apply in your PR career, presumably on terra firma. In addition to planning, teamwork, communications, trust and remaining calm during a crisis, divers and PR practitioners share, or should, a reverence for data. Without constantly keeping an eye on data, divers and communicators can end up all wet.

Before you hit send, go back and visualize the recipient for a couple of seconds. Are they at the desk when it comes in? Will they read it from their phone while on the road? In other words, have you written something that will cause them to open it and/or something that stands out from the 90 other emails waiting on them?

Andrew Hayes, VP, corporate communications at Fifth Third Bank, has seen media relations from the other side, and he wasn’t too impressed by the view. After running his own PR agency for 10 years, he… Continued

Owing to social media, consumers have never felt closer to the world of entertainment and entertainers. They color nearly everything we do. So, what is the best way for brands to take advantage of the public’s thirst for show business? While it might seem that hiring Beyoncé or Frank Ocean is the way to go, there are myriad options for brands.

As PR pros know, media exposure can be a double-edged sword. What stories should be picked up and receive coverage and which should be tossed to the scrap heap? And who decides? Certainly we hope “the system” weeds out self-serving publicity hounds, but that doesn’t happen all the time. Unfortunately in our media culture outrageousness sometimes is rewarded. When that happens deserving stories can get crowded out. Here’s our attempt to make sure one good story gets told.

As PR pros know, media exposure can be a double-edged sword. Most of the time the system works: Stories that deserve to be told are told, and people who make outlandish claims only to gain… Continued

Veteran PR pro Arthur Solomon has handled PR crises here and abroad, so when he says too many crises are handled poorly he deserves to be heard. In this article he provides tips for avoiding making crises worse. Of course, he whacks at some sacred cows when counseling brand communicators to tell the truth, to respond only when you’re ready and to consider each crisis as a unique event.

Imagine this: attendees at a conference are flocking to a table filled with greeting cards where they can choose among “thank you,” “happy birthday” and “congratulations” greetings, write something nice (hopefully), lick the envelope and… Continued