The Public Relations Blog

Tear down the walls between your company and journalists with help from PR

The New York Times … The Wall Street Journal … CNN … The Associated Press. It would be terrific to have your company featured or even just mentioned in these media powerhouses. You see other companies highlighted all the time, so why isn’t your company?

Learn the top 4 ways your company can use PR to lessen the impact and longevity of a crisis

You see it all the time: There’s a news story about some large company screwing up in a major way, yet coming out of it relatively unscathed (and often with a boost in profits to boot). How do they do it? More importantly, what can your company learn from their experiences?

In this day of 24-hour news and things that go viral in the night, it’s no longer a question of if your company will go through a crisis, but when. Fortunately, there are plenty of examples to choose from of large corporations using PR crisis management tools in a successful way. Discover the right methods for dealing with a crisis to keep your company out of hot water.

Use PR to fully leverage this often-underused tool

Ah, the dreaded press releases. Over the years, we have come to rely on them, hate them and frequently declare their demise. Nonetheless, news releases remain a crucial instrument for media relations efforts. Since it is clear that you have to use them, you may as well get maximum impact and reach from your press releases.

If you’re not using PR to grow your business, you’ll soon be left behind

It seems like every day we are asked to embrace some new product, idea or way of doing business. Each time, we are promised that if we get on board with the new plan, we will change the world. Some things hold true, such as the microwave, the internet and social media; others, not so much. However, there is now a novel approach to handling public relations and marketing that we believe will stand the test of time.

It depends on how much you want to avoid (or survive) your next crisis

Ben Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Indeed, it is much easier to safely extinguish a campfire with water and soil than it is to battle a raging forest fire. You can say the same for crisis management.

Learn why your company needs social media channels for effective crisis communication

General Motors CEO Mary Barra apologized for the disaster surrounding GM’s faulty ignition switches. Domino’s Pizza CEO Patrick Doyle expressed regret after two employees created a disgusting YouTube video prank featuring nothing you would ever want on a pizza. But was this enough? 

Every available statistic proves that images are critical to social media and overall communications campaign success. Worthwhile images and video can stimulate a proverbial viral riot over a topic or product. Therefore, many businesses, bloggers and digital media mavens invest in beautiful photographs to add to their websites, blogs and social media posts to increase engagement.

Editorial calendars provide a roadmap for public relations professionals by outlining the content that media outlets will focus on for the entire year. With the right approach, editorial calendars can make a PR professional's job easier and could generate some great feature coverage. Here’s how to make use of editorial calendars.

Customers are already talking about you; learn how to use it to your advantage

Today, online customer reviews can literally make or break a business. When reviews are managed correctly and the information is positive, you can reap benefits such as an increase in customer engagement and profits. If you get it wrong, your company will be flooded with negative search engine results for years as your reputation plummets.

6 tips for getting better results with your pitches

How often do you get a call from someone trying to sell you something and the person begins by asking if you have a minute? This is an immediate way to shut down the conversation and end the call. In today’s busy world, no one really has a minute.

As you are pitching, you will discover that the same is true for journalists. You will find that it’s never a good time to pitch a journalist. Journalists may be working on several stories at one time and are often on tight deadlines. This means they are usually far too busy to speak by phone about your pitch idea, especially when others are bombarding them – often with pitches that don’t pertain to the area or topic that they cover.