Media Relations

As part of the intensive media outreach to build awareness of online coupon site RetailMeNot.com, Schwartz Communications deployed an established PR tactic—sending a gift to the desks of tier-one journalists and Web producers. The Holiday… Continued

Most brand stories take a little more than 140 characters to tell, but we pitch media via Twitter. Then we wonder why our messages become confused with competitors, our products seem undifferentiated and our brand stories are often forgotten. Maybe we need to start fresh, with a simple story.

While the contributed article has been a part of PR outreach for decades, another related practice has stolen its thunder—self publishing.

The usual practice in the market research world is to target an elite few when testing products and/or concepts. Now, online survey company Infosurv and BrainJuicer, in the U.K., are turning that adage on its head—the new thinking banks on the premise that large groups of people are wiser than an elite few.

With the explosion of consumer-generated media, opinion research has become one of the pillars of communications strategy. To explore the ins and outs of external surveys as a media relations tool, PR News asked corporate PR heads who often field surveys and an online research firm executive about the benefits, options, challenges and possible pitfalls in conducting meaningful research.

PR professionals who follow the media relations rules are growing increasingly frustrated by PR spam complaints in the blogosphere. The good news is there are things you can do to clearly signal your commitment to respect journalists’ traditional boundaries.

Three expert panelists weigh in on the hot topics, trends and tools of media relations. What shouldd PR pros be doing to optimize media outreach? What should PR executives be thinking about for the rest of 2010?

Financial journalists polled in the second annual BackBay-Marketwire Financial Services Reputation Survey said that the finance industry’s reputation has declined over the last year, and financial services firms need to overcome a credibility gap.

In a country where both business and government keep the press at arm’s length, here’s how good relationships with foreign journalists can be a win-win situation.

A recent study by PR agency Ruder Finn finds that Americans now spend an average of 2.7 hours per day on the mobile Internet. Now is the time to begin formulating a mobile PR strategy and to start on the path toward integration.