The Public Relations Blog

Learn how to use your knowledge to increase profits and advance your brand

Getting consumers to notice your company and trust you enough to make a purchase are the keys to growing your customer base. Everyone knows that. What is less clear is exactly how you go about attracting (and keeping) more customers.

Nowadays, it seems that everyone wants to know everything as soon as possible. This culture of instant gratification pervades everything from social media and internet gossip channels to the national news networks. It has even intruded upon the business environment.

How your decision will affect your online success

A staff member takes to social media to complain about your customers after a particularly stressful day at work. It seems that your employees spend more time checking their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and online dating sites than they do on work. With such a huge potential for disaster, you may be ready to ban social networks at your company altogether.

As the Bard once said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” But, is this the case when it comes to a public relations campaign? Of course a company wants to have its story told, but it must also be done in a time- and cost-effective way. So, our answer to the question posed is a resounding yes. Brevity is the soul of the PR campaign.

Now for the bad news: Creating a brief but engaging PR piece takes imagination and time. It is not usually something that business owners feel comfortable with or are compelled to do. Instead, they would like to concentrate on other business matters – ones closer to their hearts, like gaining new customers or improving the bottom line.

If you’re trying to stay on the cutting edge of technology, you read Wired magazine. Wired is one of today’s most popular technology magazines and is a trusted source of information about the latest innovative technologies.

8 ways to avoid common pitfalls and maintain a strong relationship

The partnership between a company and its public relations agency is one of the most important connections in business. It is how a company shares messages, increases visibility and builds its brand.

Having to constantly find a new PR agency can be a time-sucking nightmare for a company. It’s better for everyone to develop longstanding, mutually beneficial relationships. Keeping a PR client for a lifetime is not easy, but if everyone works together, it can be done. You just have to know these eight dos and don’ts. 

Reviews are real, influential and online forever; so let PR show you how to make the best of them

There are now more than 500 review sites online. It’s a pretty sure bet that the public is rating your company on more than one of them. Are you handling your company’s online reviews in the most advantageous and effective way?

With more and more people researching and shopping online, review sites have quickly become a powerful indicator for the performance of your brand. Whether it’s a star- or points-related review or a paragraphs-long discourse about the advantages/disadvantages of your product, consumers are increasingly using these reviews to make final purchasing decisions. Therefore, it’s imperative that you manage online reviews correctly. Here are four mistakes you may be making in handling your online customer reviews.

When it’s time to pitch that reporter or write your next blog, be ready

Once again, it’s time to develop a weekly list of topics for your media pitches and blogs, and once again, you’re stuck. This is a perennial problem for public relations practitioners everywhere, but you can make it easier with the right tools and techniques.

Why it's important to communicate bad medical news about a CEO

Nothing is more troubling to a public relations spokesperson than having to communicate the poor health or advancing illness of the CEO of a major corporation. Simply put, there is no good way for a PR person to make the news story appealing to the investing public, and no matter how he or she positions the news, the public will usually decry the spokesperson for one of two things: being less than forthcoming on the details or being downright duplicitous.

Social media is optimal for promoting interaction between your company and the public in a way that is meaningful and delivers results. But a social media crisis can send your company into a tailspin if your social media campaign is not on target.

Several top companies have experienced social media woes that they could have easily avoided – or at the very least minimized. Here are a few examples, followed with the steps they might have taken to avoid a social media crisis.