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266 Resources for

Public Relations

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What Does a 'Relationship' With a Journalist Get You?: You hear a lot of PR folks claim to have 'relationships' with certain journalists. I remember when I was at PR firms how often colleagues would drop names during new business pitches. "Walt Mossberg (WSJ), Steve Lohr (NYT) -- yeah, we have GREAT relationships with them." As if to say...; Tags: Travis Van, public relations; Blog posts 2007-09-19
PR Firm / Client Collaboration Break-Downs: Yesterday's rant covered some of the common characteristics of underperforming PR firms (from the frustrated client's point of view). As kstarrpr (from Larkin Communications) commented, sometimes PR firms do indeed "[e]xpect the internal manger [on the client side] to do the heavy lifting with the agency's duties...; Tags: collaboration, Travis Van, public relations, PR company; Blog posts 2007-09-18
Signs You Picked the Wrong PR Firm: Your company went through an agency review process and found the PR firm that felt like the right match (their track record was solid, their referrals checked out, the publicity results they promised sounded ideal). You've already invested a great deal of your (VP or director of marketing) time...; Tags: Travis Van, public relations, PR company; Blog posts 2007-09-17
World's Most Clueless Marketing Group?: Regular readers of this blog know that I'm critical of marketing groups that don't pull their weight. I thought it would be interesting to share a recent, real-life experience that, for me, illustrates exactly how absurd some marketing organizations can get. First some background. As...; Tags: Public relations, Marketing research, Geoffrey James, Gartner Inc., marketing, Gartner PR; Blog posts 2007-09-11
How to Handle Screw-Ups: Today the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing on toy safety. (A minute by minute blog of the event, for anyone interested, is available here.) The Senate held a similar hearing one week ago. Both events serve as a reminder, in case we needed one, of the recent...; Tags: Jessica Stillman, apology, Wharton School, remuneration; Blog posts 2007-09-19

Before Your New Product Launch, Solicit Criticism: Too often, new products are created without adequate feedback and buy-in from prospective customers. That's the gist of the popular book "The Four Steps to the Epiphany" -- which advocates / roadmaps a much richer interaction between vendors and customers during the entire product development cycle. ...; Tags: Product, Customer, Public Relations, Marketing Research, Sales Strategy, Marketing, Corporate Communications, Sales, Travis Van; Blog posts 2007-10-01
10 Underrated Business Books: They are hardly traditional, but by challenging conventional wisdom, these books explain the big ideas that are essential to business success. Economics ...; Tags: Geoffrey James, organizational behavior, incentive, long tail, statistical analysis, public relations, worker, marketing, job; Articles 2007-08-24
VMware: The World's Busiest PR Team?: A couple of weeks ago, Forbes wrote that VMware had become the world's fifth highest-valued software company (behind only Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Adobe). Pretty incredible for a technology category ("virtualization") whose basic concept / definition ("abstracting the OS and software from the underlying hardware") ... is far beyond the...; Tags: Virtualization, IPO, Utility computing, Storage management, Travis Van, VMware Inc., PR team, public relations; Blog posts 2007-09-12
Don't Let Your PR Become More About Vanity Than Selling Product: I once had a client who was relatively ho-hum about all the trade press we were getting (i.e., great visibility with the audience actually likely to buy his product) ... yet would take great delight in any mere mention in business press articles (sending out celebratory emails to his friends...; Tags: Travis Van, public relations; Blog posts 2007-09-05
Small, Offbeat Trends Can Change the World: NEW YORK (Reuters) - While Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" explores how a trend emerges from obscurity to the mainstream, a new book says even small trends can have big effects. By Sinead Carew NEW YORK (Reuters) - While Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" explores how a trend emerges from obscurity...; Tags: Gender and diversity, presidential election, obscurity, women, advisor, New York, public relations, U.S., sales, Reuters Ltd., movie, job, phone, computer; News items 2007-09-08
Strumpette: Beware the Dark Side of PR 2.0: After a competing vendor once blatantly stole a bunch of his company's positioning / messaging language ... a CEO I knew shipped them a box of t-shirts (with his company's logo on it), noting "you stole our message, you might as well wear our t-shirt while you're at it." ...; Tags: Travis Van, Web 2.0, Strumpette, T-shirts, public relations, Web; Blog posts 2007-08-21
PR Success After the New Kid on the Block Luster is Gone: I've found publicity to be much easier to generate for early stage companies. There's always lots to talk about -- how novel the new product or service is, how it will disrupt the existing landscape, et al. And not only is there more to talk about, but the...; Tags: Travis Van, public relations; Blog posts 2007-08-13
Choosing a Wire Service: Today a relatively new wire distribution service (24-7pressrelease.com) announced that it was named #1 in a list of the "top five press release companies" (ironically, 24-7pressrelease.com used PRNewswire for the distribution of their press release announcing this accomplishment).10 years ago, press release distribution was basically a two horse race between...; Tags: Marketing research, Travis Van, Businesswire, PR Newswire; Blog posts 2007-08-07
Use Equity To Get Aligned With Service Providers: Instead of being paid in cash for services they provided to entrepreneurs, some professionals are sometimes willing to take some of their fees in the form of equity. Lawyers, accountants, marketing and public relations professionals, and management consultants are the most likely to agree to an equity stake. But even...; Tags: Financial services, Investment, American Express Co., equity, consultant, public relations, marketing, supplier, financial; White papers 2007-08-16
PR Implications of New Google News Feature: PRWeek ran a story about the just-launched Google News feature that "allows newsmakers to comment on articles" (listed on Google News) and then puts those comments at the top of the comments list."Some have commended the technology for revolutionizing media - notably the role of journalists, sources, and PR pros....; Tags: Travis Van, Google News, Google Inc., Google News feature, public relations; Blog posts 2007-08-13
Opportunistic PR Around Barry's HR Chase is Nauseating: With all the sleaze that's shrouding Barry's homerun legacy, it's truly apropos that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome is officially kowtowing.(Excerpt from AP Story that ran recently):City Hall will be lit up with orange lights and keeping track of Barry Bonds' home runs starting Friday as the Giants slugger gets...; Tags: Public relations, Travis Van, Human Resources, Barry Bonds; Blog posts 2007-08-01
If the Content is Lousy, PR 2.0 Isn't Going to Fix It: There are scores of self-serving, PR agency-written blogs out there today about the emergence of (*gag*) "PR 2.0" - pontificating on the power of blogging, tagging, podcasting, social networking and wikis for generating buzz and credibility. Very few give any sort of valuable context about when it actually makes...; Tags: Travis Van, public relations, PR 2.0; Blog posts 2007-07-31
Online Buzz Tough to Manage and Measure: During the late '90s Dot Com boom, David Holtzman ran the most critical network in the world - the domain name system. As Chief Technology Officer for Network Solutions (acquired by VeriSign for $21-billion in '00) and the manager of the Internet's master root server, or the "dot," Holtzman oversaw...; Tags: Public relations, Blogging, Domain names, Travis Van, David Holtzman, Internet; Blog posts 2007-07-30
The Risks in Announcing Your New Product at an Event: Many vendors use the timing of an industry event as the gaiting factor for the launch of their new product. Without question, the ability to get a product in front of a concentrated audience of the target customer is extremely valuable.But for most vendors, does it really make sense...; Tags: Strategy, Travis Van, industry event; Blog posts 2007-07-26
Should I Hire a PR Firm or Go In-House?: Many companies (start-ups in particular) are confronted with the decision of whether to hire an outside PR firm, or to lead their PR efforts internally. These are the associated pros / cons as I see them:In-House PR Pros ... Lower cost than PR firm - A decent PR firm will...; Tags: Travis Van, public relations, PR company; Blog posts 2007-07-23