The Public Relations Blog

Reporters write and report on stories about people and companies every day. While most articles are neutral, some articles portray an individual or company positively, and some cast the company and/or its executives in a negative light. When a negative article surfaces, at what point might you decide to file a lawsuit against a news outlet or reporter?

Libel and slander are two terms often used interchangeably to express journalism that is harmful to an individual or organization. However, they are not the same. In some instances, statements made against you or your company could be considered libel or slander. What’s the difference? 

Wikipedia can be a blessing for many people as they seek information and conduct research. It can also be a frustration for organizations and companies who need to ensure their content is accurate. 

Many companies ask their PR firm to write Wikipedia articles on their behalf. We have even heard (and seen) that some companies hire PR professionals to edit Wikipedia pages to delete negative information and make the company look better than it is. This is not an ethical practice.

Here are several steps PR and HR professionals can take to ethically ensure your company is updating your company’s Wikipedia page. 

Keep your brand strong by avoiding these mistakes

Building a strong, positive reputation for your company is important and takes time. Creating a well-known, recognizable brand doesn’t happen overnight. Surprisingly, most companies don’t know how to manage their PR, so they make mistakes, which leads to a weak or negative reputation. That’s what you and your company want to avoid.

It’s time to put the public back into public relations. Public relations is much more than media relations. It’s also social and web media. One of the more notable ways – especially in the eyes of the executive team, founders, and even employees – to share your company is celebrating your company’s anniversary milestone.

We aren’t talking about your third anniversary or 27th anniversary. Many companies make it to an initial milestone anniversary, and if you celebrate it, then you must find different ways to highlight you, your executive team, and your company and its accomplishments. Take it one step further and find ways to uniquely include the media, community, etc. When celebrating your company’s anniversary, don’t forget about employees, the community, vendors, suppliers, strategic partners, deserving nonprofit organizations that are strategically aligned with your industry, or products and services. 

Earned media coverage should be important to your company

Pitching the media can be daunting, especially if it isn’t something your employees do regularly as part of their job. As a PR firm, this is something our team does daily for companies. The dirty little secret that no one in corporate america – no one in your company – wants to talk about is how much corporate marketers hate pitching to the media. It’s a combination of fear, of rejection, of insecurity, of making a cold call, and of not having newsworthy content to share. 

Earned media coverage should be important to your company because it builds a brand while advertising supports it. As a company executive, it’s not your job to micromanage, but it is your job to ensure your company sees success by building credibility and awareness. Give your marketing team the resources it needs to be as successful as possible. 

For good PR and media relations, move your brand away from exaggerations

I’m warning you now that this is the greatest blog post you may ever read. Maybe. This is a hyperbole. How often are your company and your PR team boasting — to the extreme — how amazing your company, its thought leaders, and its products are? Your company may be pretty amazing, and not everyone is going to think your company is the greatest thing since sliced bread. As an executive, you have to recognize and realize this fact. 

A key component of the PESO model

News media is a major component of the Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned model. In fact for me, it’s my favorite part of public relations – assisting clients and companies in gaining news media. News media is often referred to as earned media, and it’s the content that third-party entities (namely media outlets) create about your company and your brand, its products, and its services. 

Know the best way to connect with reporters

Pitching to the media can be difficult, especially if your PR and marketing departments aren’t used to reaching out and connecting with the media on you and your company’s behalf. It can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s why we created the 21 mistakes you’re making when you pitch the news media – to help your team feel more comfortable and confident as they reach out to journalists. 

One mistake we often hear from companies is their teams are sending more than one email to a single outlet. This is number 12 in our list of 21 mistakes. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. 

Less page requests can mean more traffic

How many times have you visited a website and found it slow to load? Is your own company’s website also one that tends to drag as it loads? A website that is slow to load negatively impacts the user – your client’s – experience. It can impact the overall experience so much that prospective clients may leave your site and go find or fill their needs elsewhere. 

You ask yourself (and your IT team) why this is happening. Most likely it’s not because your internet speed isn’t good but rather because there are too many page requests or hypertext transfer protocol requests. 

Know how to best share your company’s message

Earned media coverage is built awareness about your company through efforts like media relations (connecting with reporters), blogger relations, influencers, and word-of-mouth. It’s counterpart is paid media, which is advertisements that you or your company creates or pays for about itself. We have many clients ask us the difference between earned and paid media, and in the same breath, they also ask us to create a press release to earn media coverage.