Roots PR

Oh, the places you'll go... in PR

2016-11-07T11:42:00.001-08:00

A bit of Monday fun. Feel free to add to this list in comments or on Twitter using the hashtag #PlacesYoullGoInPR Vegas (for a tradeshow) Your boss'/client's house (for a meeting) The bathroom (to cry) The event venue of a fraternal order The bookstore (to buy an adult magazine that features your business/client) A reporter's house A town you've never heard of (for a tradeshow) A cab line The

Buy storytellers, not relationships

2016-10-27T11:11:00.003-07:00

When I look at PR manager job posts or PR agency tenders, I often find some variation of this requirement listed - "Existing relationships with national media and related trade press." As a PR professional, this line is always a red flag for me. There are two reasons companies ask about media relationships and neither of them suggest the organization has a strategic approach to their

Seattle Interactive Conference Day 2 Round-up for Comms Pros #SIC16

2016-10-19T10:25:00.003-07:00

Seattle Interactive Conference 2016 is underway and there are many key takeaways for communication professionals. Below is a curated tweet stream of all the most important information shared at the conference. (As of 3:30 p.m. October 19, 2016) Using Video: Interviews don't work as ad units, no matter how cool your CEO is. Celebrities are the only exception. @ArmoryPacific #SIC16—

Seattle Interactive Conference 2016 Roundup for Comms Pros

2016-10-18T13:25:00.001-07:00

Seattle Interactive Conference 2016 is underway and there are many key takeaways for communication professionals. Below is a curated tweet stream of all the most important information shared at the conference. (As of 4:30 p.m., 10/16/2016) Some comparison: the Superbowl had 165 million views last year. Snapchat had 10 billion yesterday. #SIC16 #CordCutters— Emily (@EmilyGoll) October 18

Don't forget the last mile

2016-10-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

In telecommunications, the last mile refers to the portion of the network that physically connects service from the utility pole to the end users home or business. Historically, the last mile has been a speed bottleneck that has prevented telecom and content providers from improving service to customers. I frequently see PR professionals ignoring the last mile in their service delivery –

PR Needs to Measure Its "Beautiful Snowflakes"

2016-09-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Many PR people view the articles written about their organization like snowflakes - each one beautiful and unique. But, in many ways, that shouldn’t be true if they’ve done their job correctly. A journalist may take some license in how they present the information but you should be able to look across multiple articles and see some consistency in message, spokesperson, products, tone, etc.

4 Tips for Securing B2B PR's Holy Grail

2016-09-06T13:44:00.001-07:00

For B2B PR pros, the customer case study is a bit like the Holy Grail - highly sought after but hard to find. As peer- and influencer-driven purchasing habits continue to rise, customer references are increasingly important to driving sales. And as PR pros know, customer references are usually a journalist's first request. But getting customers to agree to provide a reference can be

A contrarian approach to marketing

2010-03-12T13:41:00.000-08:00

A great deal of marketing success depends on standing out from the crowd. Sometimes to do that requires a contrarian approach. When everyone is going this way, brands can stand out by going a different way. Emerging digital media like Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz are the rage among marketers these days and are quickly on their way to becoming prerequisites for any good campaign. Meanwhile, “

10 ways you can measure PR's impact on the business

2010-02-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

One of the major hurdles in adopting new forms of PR measurement is isolating the impact of PR activity on business metrics. Many PR professionals feel paralyzed when facing this issue, not having the resources or the know-how to tackle such a complex project. As a result, PR continues to get left out of the conversation of marketing’s impact on the business, a dangerous position when budget time

Can PR measurement save companies?

2009-04-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting conversation with a client this week about the role of PR measurement within his corporation. While it started as a dialogue about how we demonstrate ROI and justify our program dollars, we quickly moved on to a much more interesting chat about how we could leverage our measurement program in a much more meaningful way. His concern was less about measurement as an evaluative

3 Tips for Public Speaking

2009-03-04T17:11:00.000-08:00

Last week, in the space of 24 hours, I had three unrelated experiences and each one reminded me of key elements of powerful public speaking and verbal communication.BrevityI attended a panel session with several reporters discussing the current crisis in the newspaper business. All were very articulate and made great points about the state of the industry and the direction it was headed. One week

Nation of Hypocrites? Shrinking the National "Service Gap"

2009-01-27T09:14:00.000-08:00

A week ago, President Barack Obama called for a new era of personal responsibility and national service to overcome the current challenges facing America. Today, Porter Novelli released some interesting research that shows how far we have to go.Porter Novelli's study shows a significant "service gap," the difference between the number of people who claim specific causes are important to them and

Strategic PR or PR spam?

2008-11-24T16:43:00.000-08:00

I read a nice post by Veronica Belmont on how journalists treat press release spam.From the agency side, I can testify to this being a problem that all agencies face as we counsel our clients. It's a symptom of a larger problem: a lack of strategic direction and understanding of the true business challenge that the communication program is trying to solve and how that plan unfolds over time.

Social Media: Liberator of PR

2008-11-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

Kara Swisher over at AllThingsDigital posted an interesting piece on whether social media is killing PR?.In some ways the answer is yes but I think the reason is a self-delusion that marketing and PR professionals have held for many years that social media is laying bare.Essentially, PR folk have felt like they "controlled" the public perception of the brand because they could look at coverage of

We're not apes!

2008-10-24T12:55:00.001-07:00

Rafe Needleman, who's Pro PR Tips blog should be required reading for all folks new to the business, shared an interesting piece this morning on a media company's misguided attempt to highlight its benefits over CNET (Rafe writes for CNET's Webware site). Clearly this company wants to reach tech marketers that are reading CNET and let them know the huge

What is Roots PR?

2008-10-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Roots PR is my small attempt to help raise the standards of the PR profession by addressing what I believe is the fundamental challenge facing us - the complete undermining of the foundational elements of our business. Among the causes: - Agency leadership that fails to invest in their #1 asset - their staff - Corporate managers that refuse to engage in