The Public Relations Blog

8 ways to avoid common pitfalls and maintain a strong relationship

The partnership between a company and its public relations agency is one of the most important connections in business. It is how a company shares messages, increases visibility and builds its brand.

Having to constantly find a new PR agency can be a time-sucking nightmare for a company. It’s better for everyone to develop longstanding, mutually beneficial relationships. Keeping a PR client for a lifetime is not easy, but if everyone works together, it can be done. You just have to know these eight dos and don’ts. 

Reviews are real, influential and online forever; so let PR show you how to make the best of them

There are now more than 500 review sites online. It’s a pretty sure bet that the public is rating your company on more than one of them. Are you handling your company’s online reviews in the most advantageous and effective way?

With more and more people researching and shopping online, review sites have quickly become a powerful indicator for the performance of your brand. Whether it’s a star- or points-related review or a paragraphs-long discourse about the advantages/disadvantages of your product, consumers are increasingly using these reviews to make final purchasing decisions. Therefore, it’s imperative that you manage online reviews correctly. Here are four mistakes you may be making in handling your online customer reviews.

When it’s time to pitch that reporter or write your next blog, be ready

Once again, it’s time to develop a weekly list of topics for your media pitches and blogs, and once again, you’re stuck. This is a perennial problem for public relations practitioners everywhere, but you can make it easier with the right tools and techniques.

Why it's important to communicate bad medical news about a CEO

Nothing is more troubling to a public relations spokesperson than having to communicate the poor health or advancing illness of the CEO of a major corporation. Simply put, there is no good way for a PR person to make the news story appealing to the investing public, and no matter how he or she positions the news, the public will usually decry the spokesperson for one of two things: being less than forthcoming on the details or being downright duplicitous.

Social media is optimal for promoting interaction between your company and the public in a way that is meaningful and delivers results. But a social media crisis can send your company into a tailspin if your social media campaign is not on target.

Several top companies have experienced social media woes that they could have easily avoided – or at the very least minimized. Here are a few examples, followed with the steps they might have taken to avoid a social media crisis.

Axia reviews the Upitch app

Building a strong relationship with journalists is a key component of public relations. It ensures you aren’t pitching a story to the wrong person and creates a connection you can leverage for future stories. However, as technology evolves, newsroom staffers continue to get cut and journalists get more and more jaded. This means that making a journalist’s life easier is another key component of PR.

4 pro tips for staying on top of your PR game

It’s a great time of year for sports. Plenty of slow-paced baseball games balanced with intense hockey and heart-pumping basketball playoff games. When comparing your public relations approach to a sport, aim to be a right wingman or power forward, not a center fielder.

PR, after all, is a contact sport. If you want to win in the PR game, you can’t be afraid of contact. Here is some advice for incorporating more contact into your PR approach and, as a result, building stronger relationships and garnering better results.

In many matters, it pays to take your time and think about a decision – that's why mortgages and car loans allow a three-day, penalty-free grace period in many states, just in case buyer's remorse sets in. When it comes to dealing with a corporate crisis, however, time is always of the essence. Here are four reasons why you should move quickly during a crisis.

How to create an effective, integrated PR campaign

Apple’s “tap and go” technology offered through the Apple Pay platform uses advanced payment security developed by MasterCard. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus were the first devices to include capabilities for this technology. With this launch, the MasterCard public relations team, working in collaboration with a PR agency, was eager to push MasterCard ahead of competitors and position the company as a leader in contactless payment safety and drive consumer use of the technology.

5 ways to guard your company against digital hackers

You think it won’t happen to you, until it does. Whether it’s your identity, your reputation or your social media accounts, digital hackers are alive and well.

Last week, Ole Miss Rebels lineman Laremy Tunsil personally learned just how social his social media accounts could be when they were hacked during the NFL’s opening draft night.