Archive: December 2013

Authenticity is all the rage these days. According to the social media gurus, you have to be authentic if you want to have followers and likes. The crisis communications experts will tell you that authenticity is key to recovery in a crisis. But there are times when authenticity just doesn’t work.

Buckle up. Change in the PR field has been accelerating at a rapid clip in the last several years and 2014 will be no exception. As PR moves closer and closer to the core of strategic marketing, C-level managers increasingly expect PR pros to demonstrate their value and align communications with the organization’s overall goals and objectives, financial and otherwise.

Used properly, social-media platforms can be extremely efficient at uncovering trends, discovering influencers, tracking coverage and building a brand, all things that PR is accountable for. But it takes time to use social media well.

The vast majority of Americans (93%) are loyal to stores that have sales on products they frequently purchase while 86% said they buy promotional products, according to a recent released by Synqera.

In a Dec. 6 PR News webinar on writing relevant, share-worthy press releases, Myra Oppel, regional communications vice president for utility company Pepco Holdings, and Jana Telfer, associate director, communication science, for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tackled the thorny question of whether the news release is dying—or already dead. Their answer: it’s toast. […]

Nelson Mandela’s words have inspired millions. Here are some quotes that resonate with PR communicators.

Paul Walker’s death in a fiery high-speed car crash raises some tough PR questions for Universal. Universal already had a “do as I say, not as I do” PSA starring Walker in the can. As of this morning, the PSA had only 16,593 views on YouTube. Should Universal promote that PSA harder? Make more Walker PSAs?

Clients come and go, but properly analyzing a loss can lead to reassessment, adjustment and more business.

Google Catalog. Google Wave. Google Answers. They’re all part of the Google graveyard, online platforms that the Web giant rolled out in the last several years but ultimately shutdown. However, Google+, which launched in 2011, has been a raging success, now ranking as the second-largest social networking site in the world after Facebook. So how can PR folks leverage Google+?

Millennials are a much sought-after demo by communicators, but they’re not an easy bunch to nail down. In 2008 and 2012, the Obama presidential campaign wisely targeted Millennials (born between the early 1980s and the… Continued