PR on Ulitzer Lots of companies – especially those in B2B – still talk
about (or request) PR services that increasingly strike me as tired, fading
or dead. Press tours & press briefings – yes, there are still industries
where the press tour is alive and well (entertainment!) but most reporters,
editors and bloggers don’t have time to meet in person anymore. I always
felt bad for them during the height of this practice when an endless stream
of PR people with clients in tow stacked-up to get their turn updating
glassy-eyed reporters. Hits & clips – counting clips (printed editorial
coverage) and putting undue weight on offline publicity to measure PR success
should have died two decades ago. Ask Katie Paine, one of the leaders in
communications measurement. She says “hit” stands for How Idiots Track
Success. Press kits, brochures & collateral – in this era of ... (more)
Haiti Earthquake on Ulitzer Thanks to social media, the word got out of
ravaged Haiti immediately, people mobilized and money was raised instantly.
While this isn’t the first time it’s been a vital link in a crisis,
it’s invigorating how social media has woven itself into the fabric of
traditional media. There was a time, not long ago, when major news
organizations relied primarily on its own news gatherers to shape the story.
Now an increasing number of media is open to – and relying on – citizen
journalists to tell their tales. With buildings crumbled, roads blocked,
po... (more)
iPad on Ulitzer
To borrow a line from Scrooge, "I'm as giddy as a drunken man." With today's
Apple iPad intro, it feels like Christmas.
I was glued to Engadget's live blogfeed of the announcement. Apple is
leveraging its iPhone technology in a new tablet format, adding bells and
whistles like unlocked, no contract, and cheap 3G data plans, a keyboard dock
and the iBookstore.
But once again, as we've seen in the past with Apple, the whole is larger
than the sum of the parts. In the tech industry we pay homage to "innovation"
as the ultimate springboard for leadership positioning ... (more)
The CEO sitting next to me the other day heads a very successful company. She
understands marketing and gets social media. But when the subject of blogging
came up, she went down an interesting path. “I still don’t get
why we need to blog. Who’s going to visit our Web site to read our
blog? On top of that, we're real busy and don’t have a lot of extra
time to write content consistently. I don’t want to start and stop;
that’s worse than never starting. So why is blogging so
critical?” She may appear to have a good point. After all, som... (more)
Sometimes it’s hard for companies with complicated stories and
technologies to simplify. This happens for several reasons, including
culture, ego, myopia and fear. If it’s your job to make techy
spokespersons more effective communicators, consider a few of these
techniques:
Engineers typically dominate technology company cultures. They often assume
everyone is on their intellectual wavelength and can follow along. Help them
see the light when communicating with less technical people. Less is more,
simple is better.
For some folks, it’s a trip knowing subje... (more)
Andy Beaupre is a 35-year branding and communications professional. He is a senior counselor with Beaupre and heads the firm’s clean technology practice.
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