Outside public relations support can be an invaluable tool – whether you’re working on a single project or in a long-term engagement to provide perspective, expertise, and communications support. But if you’re spending wads of money and feel as though your relationship with your PR firm is spiraling toward the drain, it’s time to reexamine the basics.
Write it down, practice it, make eye contact with your audience, and if you mess up just acknowledge it — all of these tactics can help when giving a speech.
Paula Deen, the doyenne of Southern cooking, had a really good thing going—a strong brand, a loyal following, TV shows, and a multi-million dollar empire of endorsements, cookbooks, cookware, restcookbooksAnd then it all came crashing down.
It’s 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon and a crisis is unfolding. A reporter has heard that your CEO is about to be indicted for embezzlement. Or there has been a terrible accident at one of your offices and someone is gravely injured.
An article in the most recent Harvard Business Review got me hopping angry because it undercuts the value of PR and communications. Some background: The piece was about TED, that marvelous convener of great minds and ideas, and how it had appeared to lose control of its brand through its TEDx gatherings.
In this age of tell-all and bare-all, there are many times in business and in life when it is just best not to share information. Within the context of media relations, while most people think about what they want to say ahead of any public statement or interview or discussion, they too often fail to anticipate how to answer the follow-up questions.
Hurricane Sandy, dubbed “Frankenstorm” by the National Weather Service, barreled over the East Coast this week wreaking yet untold havoc and destruction. As one governor put it, the damage in some places is “unspeakable.” But because of excellent communication and preparation, loss of life and serious injuries seem to have been kept to a minimum.
A recent article in the Washington Post about the summer drama over the ouster and then reinstatement of University of Virginia (UVA) President Teresa Sullivan detailed the effort of Rector Helen Dragas to put a positive public face on this action.
This headline PR Woes: When Access Isn’t Worth It on a recent post on Media Bistro’s Fishbowl DC was too compelling to resist. Contributing writer Eddie Scarry was lamenting the demise of a connection between a publicist who invited him to a screening of The Paperboy and then told him he would be banned from future screenings because Scarry had written negatively about the film. The publicist’s action raised his hackles and mine as well.
Public relations is all of those things but I would frame it a little differently. To me, the best public relations is simply this: starting and nurturing ongoing conversations between an organization or company and the various stakeholders and audiences it needs to engage to thrive and grow.
