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.
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!
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.
Typically, when people think of PR practitioners they think “These people are going to scam me into getting my business” – and sometimes that is the case. However, there are several ways for a PR practitioner to persuade people through communication, in an ethical manner, to get the outcome they desire.
In my opinion, I think one of the most effective ways for practitioners to use persuasive communication is through audience analysis. In order to know what and how to sell, you need to know who you are selling to. If you are the PR rep for Justin Bieber’s newest fragrance, what age demographic do your commercials need to appeal to? What stores will that audience most likely shop in? What television channels will they most likely see commercials for the fragrance? If you show the commercial at 11am on a soap opera, then your chances of sales are not going to be very high, whereas if you air the commercial on ABC Family during Pretty Little Liars, then you will probably reach your desired audience.
Another aspect of effective persuasive communication is timing. Timing is everything. How effective would it be if Walmart sent out their annual holiday toy catalog in July? Kids would forget and/or changed their minds on what they want by the time Christmas rolled around. That is a situation in which you might wait for advertisement, however, it is different in situations like hollywood blockbusters. If you are watching tv and see a movie advertisement for the first time for a movie that is coming out that weekend, what will your thoughts be? Mine would definitely be, “Oh, they sure haven’t advertised that well, it must not be that good” – but – movies that come out in December that have been advertised since August will make you say “Wow – they really are trying to talk this movie up – it’s got to be good!” That is a situation in which you would promote early.
Both of these tactics are great ways for PR practitioners to effectively and ethically persuade an audience. So go ahead, give it a try!
Seeing as how Apple is such a large corporation, one would think that they are active in every social media outlet out there. Wrong. Apple, Inc, as a whole, does not have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, an Instagram, or any other social media account – however – the App Store and iTunes Store do have Twitter accounts. Some people may ask why Apple doesn’t participate in social media, but the answer is kind of obvious: They don’t need to.
Apple has such a strong and loyal fan base, and they are so confident in their customer service, that they simply do not need to waste their time with social media. Yes, it would be nice for customers to be able to keep up with them via Twitter, but they know that their products are so extraordinary that people will go out of their way to keep up with them.
For my PR Applications class we frequently do what is called NewsU. NewsU is a website full of free courses that can be very useful for journalism or PR students to gain tips and skills for a future career.
The last course I took was called “Lousy Listeners” – which, of course, is about lousy listeners!
One thing I learned from this course is that I am not a good listener. I knew I was not a good listener already, however, this course justified it. Seeing as how many people are “lousy listeners”, the course offers some tips.
Helpful tips include:
Listen to what is meant, not to ready for a reply
Put yourself in the speaker’s shoes; how does the world look to him
We think faster than another speaks; keep thought on what the other is saying
Expect the speaker to say what he means in different words than you would use
Following these tips, alone, will significantly help with poor listening
It was confirmed that I was a bad listener when I read the courses’ list entitled, “Good Listeners Do This.” I do not do half of the things on this list. These are definitely things that I would like to work on more not only for professional reasons, but in my personal relationships as well.
The list includes:
probe for clarification
listen for the story
summarize well
empathize
spot hidden assumptions
keep the other person talking
get rid of distractions while listening
look at the person as he or she speaks
look for “congruency” between what the person says and how he or she gestures and postures
encourage by nodding head or giving a slight smile
show awareness and control of body movements (no moving around, shaking legs, etc.)
This course was a great reminder of the things I need to personally work on when I am a listener in a room.
You know how they say that in order to work get to the top, you have to start at the bottom? Well that definitely applies to PR when it comes to working in either a firm or a corporation department.
Now, I know some people reading this may be offended, but I, personally think starting at the bottom means starting in a firm. If a PR practitioner wants to gain experience in all things PR, then they have to work themselves thin doing the “gritty” work at a firm.
Now, don’t get me wrong, working in a corporation department is just as much work and just as stressful – but it is a different kind of stressful work. The daily and weekly work load in a department is, for the most part, consistent. What I mean by consistent is that there is a person for each specific need. Needs such as social media, event planning, press releases, etc. Each part within the PR department has someone designated to that and that only. However, the case is different for PR firms.
PR firms are never working on the same thing twice and they temporarily work with various corporations and individuals. A small company who can not afford to have a PR representative would hire someone from a local firm, temporarily, to take care of whatever PR matters that company needs done at that time.
I would without a doubt rather work in a corporation department, but there are some pros and cons to both:
Department:
Pros
Consistent – do not need to work to gain more clients – reputation is already established
Specialize in a certain area of PR
Option to do a little of everything
Large corporation = good pay
Cons
A huge responsibility
Frequent overtime hours
Firm:
Pros
Gain a lot of experience
Gives you that “3-5 years of experience” for a larger job title at a corporation
Work with several different clients – builds connections
Every time I go to a hotel, there is some sort of conference – whether law, cosmetology, dental, etc. And from what I have observed, the purpose for these conferences are not only to gain new knowledge about the field, but to keep credentials and licensing. You can not get a hair cut unless the stylist has their certificate taped on their mirror and you surely can’t go get a root canal without seeing the dentists’ licensing hanging on the lobby wall.
So why should this be any different for PR professionals?
Edward Bernays, known as the father of Public Relations, tried to make it mandatory for all PR professionals to be licensed – and I agree. Now I know that no ‘big-name’ company is going to hire a PR professional without making sure that is what they went to school for, but who is to say they actually learned or attended class when they were in school? Licensing for PR would guarantee that the person who passed the test knows what they are doing.
Or is he?
Today’s modern PR is mostly about social media, paper work, phone calls, emails, and meetings with clients, so honestly, anyone with a great work ethic and social skills could figure out the job and be successful at it – but then that takes away from the people who actually go to school and learn about it. Requiring licensing would erase all of the “unfairness” in the hiring process.
Licensing would affect more than just PR professionals themselves – it would affect society because the PR professionals would actually know what they are doing and could do what businesses and people needed them to do, accurately.
So not only did Edward Bernays want Public Relations to be licensed, but I, along with many other PR students and professionals, want it to be licensed as well.
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 