The Public Relations Blog

How does an individual rise above the crowd to get her ideas heard, vision shared or concepts accepted? The terms “industry leader” or “visionary” simply boil down to mindshare. You can likely count on one hand the names of people in or outside your industry whom you believe have earned this coveted spot in your own mind. Perhaps your list includes names like Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Cuban, Beyoncé, Gordon Ramsay or Gisele Bündchen. What each of these individuals has in common is mindshare. People easily recognize their names and chosen professions and may even be able to list what they’ve done to earn themselves the title of “visionary.”

Celebrate achievements through award recognition

Entering and earning awards is an exceptional way to build credibility and positive press around your brand and company. There are a number of benefits behind winning business, industry and community awards. They can elevate your company’s status; educate and attract new customers and new employees; improve company morale; and raise your credibility.

Is your CEO more like Meryl Streep or Linda Hunt?

As head of a successful company, a CEO has already proven herself as a leader. These folks know how to surround themselves with the best people and get the job done. Still, in today’s business world, you have to find ways for your company to really stand out against the competition, and one way to do this is to position your CEO as a star.

Humans are prone to making mistakes, rash judgements and inappropriate or inaccurate statements. The public relations professionals at Axia often write about crisis communications for the simple fact that far too many people, armed with opinions, inaccurate information and emotionally driven judgment calls, end up in crisis situations. Whether it’s the prime-time anchor of a popular TV show, a CEO, actor or politician, anyone who steps up to a microphone or camera without proper preparation, spouting inaccurate data or carrying a soapbox can turn a smooth-sailing ship into a rudderless boat.

PR explains the importance of branding

Heinz. John Deere. Sears. Wells Fargo. What do these names have in common? You know exactly what they are without any explanation. In addition, you know precisely what to expect from their products and services. That’s branding.

Every company – whether it’s B2B, retail or a large corporation – can benefit from branding efforts to increase market share and visibility. Branding is not only for companies like McDonald’s or Apple; it’s the kind of recognition you should seek for your own company, and PR can help.

Social media is a growing platform with many different channels for a company to engage over, from professional channels like LinkedIn to the more informal options like Pinterest and Snapchat. When companies maintain presences on these various social channels, employees often want to connect with them. However, some employees may not know the best way to go about connecting their work lives with their social lives. Here are a few tips to share with your employees to help them connect with your company’s social media profiles.

Social media is now the No. 1 way the majority of Americans spend their time on the Internet. Currently, there are more than 1 billion active Facebook users and 400 million Twitter users – and these numbers are increasing rapidly. It’s clear that social media is booming. People use it for everything: to obtain news, to be entertained and to research and buy products and services. In fact, social media offers a straight, quick path to your target audience – which is why you can’t afford not to be using it.

Learn all about thought leadership and how you can use PR to attain it

There are plenty of corporate buzzwords and phrases floating around these days like “dashboard,” “human-to-human” and “goal digger.” Most of these will go just as quickly as they came. One that has remained throughout the years is “thought leadership,” and for good reason: It’s important.

You may have been told that your company or CEO needs to be positioned as a thought-leader in your industry but don’t really know what all the excitement is about. With help from PR, you can gain a better understanding of this vital term and achieve it for your company.

Public relations can be a credible and useful tool in any business’ marketing arsenal to enhance business development and hiring efforts, as well as industry profile. This doesn’t exclude law firms. Many attorneys perceive PR as an unnecessary expenditure requiring too significant a budget to warrant meaningful discussion. However, intelligent attorneys are more ready to recognize PR’s potential, though they require substantive, fact-based reasoning to back it up.

It’s great to see a company using PR in a smart and astute way to boost sales. Bloomin’ Brands, Inc. announced last week that its Outback Steakhouse Restaurants are now open for lunch nationwide. The company, looking to increase its revenue by expanding its menu and hours, initiated a campaign of national awareness after testing the market on a much smaller – and quieter – scale over the past year. Outback Steakhouse began offering lunch service in select restaurants last year to assess the overall consumer interest and operating expenses. After successful trial runs, the corporation was ready to formally announce its plans to launch lunch service at all of its restaurants across the nation.