Last night my housemates and I had the joy of experiencing a flood on the first floor of our house. Something went wrong with the toilet valves and it caused the toilet to gush out water for a solid 3-5 minutes, covering approximately 75% of our floor with one inch of water.
What was our initial reaction, you ask? Screaming. Screaming and panicking and a dash for rain boots and a table to stand on.
One might think it is silly to scream and panic over a flooding toilet – and now that I look back, I agree. The screaming and panicking over an overflowing toilet is a good lesson in PR and crisis management.
If I had approached the situation like a proper PR professional would have handled a crisis, I would have remained calm, walked over to the toilet, shut off the valves, gone to get a mop and then informed my housemates of the situation in a calm matter.
Now, yes, it is a bit silly to compare a PR crisis to a flooded house, but I believe every situation can be approached with a PR mindset.
Last week, Target did a Tweet-to-Runway Twitter competition to promote their new “Everyday Collection”. The point of the runway show was to feature people’s everyday tweets to promote their everyday products.
I just happened to be a lucky winner with a featured tweet! But not only did they feature my tweet, they personally referenced me, by name, in another part of the live show in response to a tweet I tweeted at them.
Lets just say I was a little excited. Take a look!
Every year, I tell myself that I am going to get organized and stay organized. Organized in life, in school, in my house, etc. Organization is just something that is key to life – especially a PR girls life!
When you first tell yourself you are going get organized what is the first thing that comes to mind? A planner. Yes, most people (including myself) will immediately go out and find that super cute planner that inspires them to write in it daily – however, that is only half of the organization process.
The first step to organization is cleaning and organizing your work space. When my desk is clean, organized, and perfectly displayed for all to see, I instantly feel put together, professional and clean. Once that is clean I can begin to write things in my planner and get further organized.
So whether you are a student, a PR girl, or just any girl with a desk or work space, here are a few examples of how to stylishly organize your work space so you can feel great and enjoy the time you spend there.
After a [way too] long blogging hiatus, I am back – and I bring some randomly ravishing updates.
First, I have been promoted from my Assistant Project Manager event planning position to Project Manager for the same team. My responsibilities have grown bigger, but I am loving every minute of it.
And second, my beautiful friend, housemate, and fellow blogger, Taylor Flumerfelt, has asked me to be one of her bridesmaids!
I am so honored and so excited to be a part of her big day.
To start off the wedding festivities, she invited us all to a Bridesmaid Brunch which was so perfectly decorated with feminine, delicate touches. The bridesmaids walked in to see a beautiful display of quiches, muffins, fresh fruit, chicken salad croissants and perfectly pink punch.
After we ate she so kindly presented us each with a gift which was a glamorous journal to keep wedding details in, and two little cards: one describing each one of the bridesmaids, and the other, a coupon for the royal treatment on the big day – hair, makeup, you name it – and for my favorite price…free!
If you are a PR student, or just anyone who is looking to begin blogging, you may not know all the “codes” for blogging. Starting a blog is not only fun, but if you get good enough and blog frequently, you never know what doors could open for you.
So whether you want to just have fun, or gain experience for PR, here are some basic tips for blogging:
Be You – You and your writing style are unique – so why try and write like someone else? People like to read real and raw material, so don’t fake it.
ALWAYS insert pictures! I can not stress that enough. People are very visual, and you are catering to people – so do what they like! (and it looks pretty!)
Make your readers “LOL” – who doesn’t like to laugh? I always like to read more of something that makes me laugh, so if you want loyal readers, then give them something they’ll want to come back to!
Keep it spaced out – long paragraphs are a “no no”. Do you like to read something that looks like a long loaf of bread?? no thank you….people’s eyes are attracted to things with spacing and short paragraphs.
Give them some credit – if you use a picture or an excerpt from another article or blog, cite them. You wouldn’t want someone to quote your work and not give you credit, now would you?
Tag, don’t URL – URL’s are ugly. End of story. It is unprofessional too. Simply highlight a word or phrase in your blog and click the “insert link” button and voila!
Consistency is Key – You don’t have to write everyday, but it is good to set a routine for both yourself and your readers. It keeps you accountable, and your readers satisfied.
Be a Little Selfish – Have an ‘About Me’ page that talks about you, your age, your career, etc. Readers like to feel like they know you.
Looks Matter – This is not one of those situations where its “whats on the inside that counts” – Like I said about the pictures, people like to look at attractive things – it’s basically a law of nature. Make sure the design and the background is not too overbearing, but at the same time, not too simple.
When I first began taking classes as a PR major, I kept hearing the same term over and over: “Press Release” – however, it seemed that my professors just assumed I knew what it meant…but I didn’t. Luckily, most of my PR classes were in a computer lab, so one day I decided to finally get smart and do what all scholarly people do – Google it.
When I Googled, “What is a Press Release” this is the first thing that popped up: “An official statement issued to newspapers giving information on a particular matter.”
While this is true, there are many more outlets for a press release than just newspapers. Since we live in a world where technology is developing bigger and better everyday, newspapers are and will continue to fizzle out little by little. So if it were up to me to define a press release I would state it as “An official statement issued to the mass media giving information on a particular matter.”
Typically a news release is needed if a company or organization is debuting and promoting a product, person, service, or trying to resolve an issue. Press releases have a very specific way of being written, so it is very important that the guidelines be followed carefully. The main source for learning how to write a press release is by reading an AP Stylebook. The AP Stylebook is your go-to guide for everything PR, Journalism and news release related.
Beyond the specifics of an actual press release, lets look at the reasons why press releases are so important. I found a great article listing the 7 Important Benefits of Press Releases. This article lists and explains some of the top reasons why a business should take advantage of press releases.
According to this article, here are the 7 reasons of the benefits of a press release:
All businesses can benefit
Press release distribution is fairly inexpensive
You can boost your company’s visibility
Press releases can establish you as an industry expert
Good releases can spread far and wide
Use your news to get more customers
Investors keep up with the news too
To see all seven of these points explained, please visit the linked article above.
So go buy an AP Stylebook and get to work on expanding your business’s horizon’s!
Coming back to college after Thanksgiving break can always be a bit depressing. You aren’t at home with your family and pets, finals are coming, and in Florida – it’s hot – so it would be quite common to feel ‘down’ during that time. Well, I have a solution for you – it’s called decorating!
I have the luxury of living in a house where I go to school, but even when I lived in a teeny tiny dorm, I always found a way to deck it out in festive decorations.
So if you are looking for some Christmas cheer, take the time to string a few lights and put up whatever size tree you desire – who doesn’t want to study for finals by the Christmas tree with some hot chocolate?
I love commercials. I know, it’s weird. Most people pay for DVR’s so they can by-pass commercials, however, i just sit and critique every one of them. I love them so much that I can recognize just about any commercial someone refers to – it’s pretty bad.
When I watch these commercials I notice things – little things – however, in the minds of the people who made them, they are not little. They are actually a bunch of strategic methods by PR professionals to get a certain type of people interested in whatever is being advertised.
For instance – Let’s examine the new Tide commercials. A while ago, there was a Tide commercial that featured a young, white married couple folding a large sum of laundry which we find out is due to their triplets. Not a big deal, right? False. For a while, Tide has had the reputation of “a rich person’s laundry soap” generally because it is one of the more expensive brands of detergent. A rich person’s soap with a white couple advertising it – see where I’m going with this? In our society, rich is associated with white (You would think we would have progressed from that viewpoint by now).
So guess what I just saw on TV this past weekend? A brand new Tide commercial – featuring a hispanic couple who sort of insinuates (and might I add, with very thick and noticeable accents – ironic?). And what is funny, is that both of these new commercials were alternated between each commercial break of the particular show I was watching. So do you think Tide is trying to reach a new crowd now?
As a PR representative you need to know about culture, ethnicity and race if you want to sell your product to everyone. You need to include all race’s and all ethnicities in order to receive good feedback, and ultimately, good sales.
If it were me and I was the PR rep for a large organization determining how to best broadcast a commercial in order to gain the highest profit, I would research to find out what the most watched nightly television shows are, and find out which type of people watch it most. I would research things such as, does the X-Factor have multiple hispanic contestants? If so, there is a good chance that will attract a large hispanic fan base – so my commercial would feature a hispanic and I would make sure it is shown every week during the time of the X-Factor.
If you want to sell or advertise something, you need to know when and to whom to do it.
There are many things PR practitioners need to be aware of when it comes the law because sooner or later, every practitioner will encounter a lawful issue. PR people generally deal with blogging, online publication, news releases and print publication, and the reputation of clients – all of which will more than likely have an encounter with the law.
One big issue that PR practitioners need to be aware of is copyright infringement. Copyright laws are intense and very commonly disobeyed. Learning how to avoid copyright infringement is very important for PR people that blog and write news releases and any type of online or print publication. Another issue concerning blogging and publication is privacy laws.
Privacy laws are extremely important for any PR person that produces published work. Especially in News Releases, the writers need to be aware of whether the issue is newsworthy and if all the facts were obtained publicly and ethically.
Like I said before, many PR practitioners work to maintain a client’s reputation, so those practitioners need to be aware of defamation laws. How useful would a PR rep be if their clients couldn’t trust their reputation to be taken care of and defended due to a lack of defamation knowledge? Not useful at all.
With these being said, here are tips for striving PR practitioners to gain some awareness of the law:
Research past defamation, libel, copyright infringement and privacy lawsuits that were taken to court and why
Practice an ethical blog now – no copyright infringement or slander, etc.
Watch the news – see how PR practitioners are doing their jobs and if they are doing them well – get ideas from them
Watch E! News, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, etc. – This will give you an idea of how celebrity PR reps handle their clients’ reputations
So if you are a striving, up-and-coming PR practitioner (like myself) these are important issues you should work on becoming more aware of.
What was our initial reaction, you ask? Screaming. Screaming and panicking and a dash for rain boots and a table to stand on.
Randomly Ravishing 