Do you know the fundamental building blocks of a solid internal PR department? Matt Broder, VP of External Communications at Pitney Bowes, shared his perspective on a PR Management Roundtable webinar this week. The five elements are: Ownership and accountability: ask yourself what parts of the communications...
While it's not certain that there will be a broad and prolonged economic downturn, there are already signs of weakness and the first reports of layoffs at PR agencies are starting to roll in. Is your agency ready to withstand the downturn? According to PR agency management...
George Bush's online on-camera interview this week on the web site Politico marks a turning point in the use of the media -- one that the C-suite ought to take note of. The interview itself is unremarkable -- it's the decision to do an interview online that's...
I'm at the Bulldog Reporter 2008 Media Relations Summit, and the first keynote was a very interesting and fun conversation between PR legend Howard Rubenstein and TV personality Charlie Rose. Charlie really represents the high-water mark of media interviewers: he has a one-hour show, commercial-free, on PBS,...
I had the pleasure of serving on a PRSA Silicon Valley Media Training panel last Friday with Steve Yoder, San Francisco bureau chief of the The Wall Street Journal. Steve was very generous with his time and shared many tips and strategies for doing a better job working with the...
In addition to my duties as the Catching Flack blogger, I conduct media training sessions for corporate executives and PR professionals. I started blogging on my own blog mainly to promote myself and my services, but when I moved over to Catching Flack I've covered a wide range of topics...
Yesterday, I shared the first five of my Top 10 Tips for Giving Great Presentations. Today's post continues with the second half of the list: Simplify your presentation: No matter how technical your audience is, they aren't as versed in your subject matter as you. Simplify difficult...
Was N.Y. governor Eliot Spitzer "caught in a prostitution ring?" Or did he simply hire a prostitute and get caught? The power of message control was on full display yesterday, with the national media playing along in all its glory. The first word I...
Great webinar today featuring Ibrey Woodall of TEKgroup International and Keith Jenkins of the Washington Post on the subject of online media relations. I hope you had a chance to join us. One of the takeaways for me as moderator was the need to really focus on...
In my Best PR Blogs posts of a couple of weeks back, I included the PRWeek blog because it was everything -- fresh, lively, snarky -- that PRWeek the trade rag isn't. One of the main reasons that blog is/was any good were the contributions of former staffer Hamilton Nolan....
One of my mantras of 21st century media relations is that "the New York Times is not going away." In other words, just because we're seeing a rise of social media and new important online media outlets such as TechCrunch and Light Reading, you shouldn't assume that means that long-standing...
It always amazes me when business executives want to get the greatest possible publicity for the dullest pieces of information. I think I understand the paradox: executives are naturally risk-averse, so they want to say as little as possible, while the rest of us are interested in hearing about...
I'm off to do a media training today, and I thought it was a good opportunity to explain the strategy behind having executives and spokespeople go through formal media training. As the famous line from Alice in Wonderland goes more or less, "if you don't know where...
The global consulting firm Deloitte & Touche has released its second annual survey on the what it calls "the state of Media Democracy" -- that is, how online and other digital communications tools are changing the way we "consume" information. Deloitte only released an overview of the...
Our friends at PRWeek have jumped in with a spread on who and what to watch in the corporate PR and agency world in 2008. Here's are highlights: The Dell/WPP partnership to form a dedicated communications company to serve Dell's needs. PRWeek expresses concern that expectations are...
More from PRWeek's wrap-up of the year just past in their 2007 Book of Lists. Today: media companies on the rise, and those that took a hit in 2007: Media on the rise in 2007: Dow Jones: DJ must be happy to be under...
One of the more vexing elements of being a PR client is figuring out what you are paying for. The vast majority of PR firms charge clients monthly retainer fees that cover the entire scope of their work, whether or not that work resulted in any media placements that month....
The Internet is changing the definition of "old media" right before our eyes, according to a panel of journalists who work for "old media" but have jobs on their web sites. Panelists Daniel Gaines, Editorial Operations Manager of latimes.com, Keith Jenkins, Newsroom Multimedia Director of the...
Herb Greenberg, the talented but often vilified business columnist for Marketwatch, has some advice for company executives: talk to me. Greenberg recently gave a lengthy interview to Talking Biz News, a blog about business journalism. Here's his advice for corporate executives and spokespeople: Q:...
PRWeek reports on a new survey by the PR agency consulting firm StevensGouldPincus of 150 PR firms, which found that turnover averages 20% per year, with larger firms (billing $25 million or more) seeing turnover rates of 24% per year. In other words, the entire agency, other than the...
