Archive for June, 2008

Must-Have PR Book - A Perfect Press Release

Published
by
Robynn
on June 19, 2008
in Public Relations
. 4 Comments

Almost every PR person comes across this problem at some stage or another: their client wants every major national media to cover their little ribbon-cutting ceremony; or they insist on adding their own flowery adjectives and industry jargon to your neatly-crafted news releases. This book will help.

A Perfect Press Release... Or Not?A Perfect Press Release…Or Not? by Jennigay Coetzer is a highly practical book, which jumps straight into useful advice right from the first paragraph. Although it’s mostly a “how-to” type of guide, it also offers some strategic advice to senior PR practitioners. Importantly, it is written so that any CEO or business person can understand what a press release should be, what it should never be and why.

I highly recommend that PR consultants and agency owners give a copy of this book to each of their clients as part of some essential media training. It will go a long way to streamline the press release approval process and possibly prevent a lot of frustration (and no, I’m not being paid a cent for saying this).  :)

This book should also be prescribed reading for all PR interns and junior staff as a quick way to cover all the basics and best-practices, along with Encyclomedia’s free Media Pitching Tips Revealed email series.

Popularity: 20% [?]


Personal Public Relations Device (PPRD)

Published
by
Scott
on June 12, 2008
in Public Relations
. 3 Comments

5Fm's DJ FreshDJ Fresh, of 5FM’s The Fresh Drive fame, has come up with a device which converts your public statement (written or verbal) into a clean, politically correct poetic verse. The device threatens to bring public relations to the people and take a large bite out of the PR market. The device was showcased on The Fresh Drive yesterday, June 11 ‘08.


Can’t hear the sound? Follow this link to listen to the new PPRD

Let us know your thoughts on this latest techno-gadget. Is it set to take the PR industry to new levels or will it bring our industry to its knees?!

Popularity: 15% [?]


Marketingweb’s Tips To Get Your Press Release Published

Published
by
Robynn
on June 10, 2008
in Media Relations Tips
. 2 Comments

The editorial staff at Marketingweb receive over a thousand press releases each week. In order to make sure that your media release stands out, they’ve very kindly published their top nine guidelines on how to get your story published.

These simple guidelines and tips can be applied to any journalist you plan to contact, although certain journalists will have their own pitching tips and preferences regarding email attachments and follow-up calls. Nonetheless, it’s a very good summary of some of the best practices in pitching your PR stories.

Also have a look at Encyclomedia’s Media Pitching Tips Revealed series. It’s a free email series with tips and advice straight from South African journalists on what works best and what PR tactics to avoid.

Popularity: 14% [?]


Sad Situation - PRISA National Conference Cancelled

Published
by
Robynn
on June 9, 2008
in Public Relations
. 0 Comments

The Public Relations Institute of South Africa (PRISA) has cancelled its annual conference, which was set to take place next week. The official reason: low bookings due to the recent xenophobic violence and unrest in Gauteng. Is it just me, or does this sound somewhat like a story that’s been spun?

Zimbabweans living in the townships have had a terrifying time trying to travel via public transport. But public relations practitioners travelling by plane and by car are in a very different situation, very far away from experiencing any xenophobic attacks. I find it hard to believe that people outside of Gauteng would decide not to attend the conference for this reason, it just doesn’t make sense. Perhaps the increase in petrol prices would be a more believable reason.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but it actually isn’t the point. I completely agree with Louise Marsland where she says that PRISA’s statement - citing xenophobic violence as the sole reason for low bookings - is highly irresponsible. According to a statement by PRISA’s president, Mixael de Kock, South Africa will have great difficulty in restoring its reputation following the recent xenophobic attacks. The statement said “PRISA is ready to play its part in strategising the country’s communication efforts in the months to come”.

Hmm, so after fanning the flame you then offer to help put it out?

The planning of this conference has been going on for months, whereas the xenophobic violence has only flared up over the last few weeks. The conference organisers could’ve seen early on how the bookings compared with those of previous years at the same stage of planning. If the sales were slow, they could’ve used their strategic skills to make changes or increase the marketing and PR efforts much earlier. Granted, South Africans love to leave things for the last minute, so perhaps they were counting on a mass charge for tickets in the last month.

To my mind, perhaps the biggest barrier to ticket sales was the choice of topics covered during the conference. Covering “Communication - The Sixth Sense“, topics ranged from the nature of intelligence and consciousness to neuro-semantics and neuro-hermeneutics. Although these topics fascinate me and I can definitely see the benefit of these for communication in general, I’m probably in the minority.

The choice to cover these topics was very brave and perhaps even pioneering for a conservative type of organisation like PRISA. I applaud them for trying something new, but considering that it is such a new angle, surely they should’ve done their homework first to see if the idea would take, or at least keep a very close watch on ticket sales in the early stages. PRISA plans to reschedule the conference for September and they say they will tweak various aspects of the offering to make it an even better event.

The biggest irony for me is that a conference covering emotional, social, ethical and spiritual intelligence is cancelled due to fears of unrest, which is perhaps not the most ethical or socially aware response. I really am sad for PRISA that the conference has been cancelled, but I can’t help but wonder if it could’ve been avoided or could’ve been handled differently.

Popularity: 12% [?]


Managing Perceptions Around Social Media - Does Your Client Get It?

Published
by
Robynn
on June 6, 2008
in WebPR
. 0 Comments

Gerry McCusker’s post on PR Disasters.com asks if the term ”Social Media” is a misnomer and possibly acts as an inhibitor to adoption. The argument being that social media just sounds lightweight to many CEOs and traditional marketing heads.

“It’s that thing my kid spends all his time on instead of doing his homework, right? Too much socialising and nothing else.” But, the teens that’ve been brought up on social media have a very different perception of it - kind of like the way a fish feels about the water it swims in. It’s just part of the way they communicate and the way they work.

There’s not much we can do now about changing the actual term and we certainly don’t need to, because the users of social media completely get the purpose, usefulness and benefits of it (or at least many of them do). They are also our future CEOs and business leaders.

But what we can do in the meantime is to sharpen our skills on how we pitch the concept to those clients, CEOs and colleagues who couldn’t be bothered with this new web0.2-socialising-thingamajig. Public relations is largely about managing perceptions and that’s exactly what we need to do here.

The art of communication is finding a way of communicating your message so that it matches the values (or priorities) of your audience. Your client won’t rate the concept of webPR and blogging very highly if it’s only being done because it’s the lattest, hottest trend. That means nothing to a business person. But if you pitch your online marketing, social media and webPR plans in terms of real business objectives, then it’s far easier to grasp. Like the SEO benefits of driving more traffic to the website and thereby increasing sales; the ability to more easily establish, affect and monitor your online reputation, thereby creating more credibility and increasing sales; the ability to get faster feedback, make improvements and then increase sales.

It’s really all about the money at the end of the day. If social media simply comes across as a cool, trendy, fun, time-wasting thing to do, then the big corporates and traditional clients will never risk it. Smart public relations people will know how to rephrase their pitches with words like “influencers” instead of “bloggers”, “business networking” or “network media” instead of “social networks” to ensure that they’re using the language their audience understands best.

Popularity: 15% [?]


Top 15 PR Blogs I’ve Read

Published
by
Robynn
on June 4, 2008
in Public Relations
. 9 Comments

This is a quick list of some of the best international PR, publicity and media relations related blogs that I’ve read recently (and there are many, many more that I haven’t read yet). I’m not numbering them, because this list is not in order of priority or greatness, it’s just a random order - you can see which blogs appeal to you most.

- The Bad Pitch Blog: “An award-winning public relations resource from Richard Laermer and Kevin Dugan, since January 2006. Read our Wrath.”

- BuzzMachine: “Jeff Jarvis blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine.com.”

- The Buzz Bin: Geoff Livingston & Livingston Communications.

- Allied: Jeneane Sessum. “Allied is Jeneane’s personal weblog, which covers cultural, social, and professional topics ranging from race and gender issues, to marketing and PR, to pet hamsters.”


(Too much good content out there and too many things to do. Picture Source: Krelic on Flickr)

- POP! PR Jots: Jeremy Pepper.

- Catching Flack: Jon Greer. “Smart ways to win the public relations game.”

- GreenBanana: Heather Yaxley. “Connecting ideas, thoughts and comment because if you’re green, you’re growing.”

- Open (minds, finds, conversations): Antony Mayfield.

- PR Disasters: “PR disasters, spin doctors and reputation management gone wrong, by PR analyst and author Gerry McCusker.”

- PR-Squared: Todd Defren. “Conversations about social media + marketing.”

- A shel of my former self: Shel Holtz.

- Micro Persuasion: “Steve Rubel explores the impact of digital trends on business, culture, media and marketing.”

- PR 2.0: Brian Solis. “Shaping the convergence of social media, PR, web marketing & technology - Live, from the edge.”

- NevilleHobson.com: “Welcome to NevilleHobson.com - the place at the intersection of business, communication and technology. Sometimes, it’s a collision.”

- Communication Overtones: Kami Huyse. “Conversations at the intersection of public relations and social media…”

 


Have a look at the PR Friendly Index for a list (according to ranking) of many more PR blogs.

Popularity: 100% [?]