You have to pitch bloggers differently than reporters. The marvelous Dave Fleet writes a lot about this topic, and Chris Brogan produced a terrific, straightforward post about blogger pitching recently. Here’s my thoughts on some advanced blogger pitching ideas and the key differences between bloggers and reporters. Influence is Made Not Born Guess how many [...]
HARO Gets Serious About Crowd Sourced Journalism
Help A Reporter Out (HARO), the uber-simple brainchild of hyper-active, skydiving, PR wild child Peter Shankman has gone big-time. Born humbly as a simple way for reporters to connect with potential sources, HARO has grown to more than 50,000 participating reporters, with 150,000 people receiving three daily emails stuffed with requests for sources. Not surprisingly, [...]
Panic in the Aisles – Airborne Social Media Lessons
I was on a flight home from Kansas City last week when a bit of condensation apparently emitted from the air conditioning as we were preparing for take-off. A passenger shouted “there’s smoke in the plane” followed by a second passenger, then a third, etc. The flight attendants were a bit stunned and immediately got [...]
4 Brand-Saving Recommendations for Social Media Crisis Management
Is today your Domino’s? Social media can both create and solve crises, and the incredibly fluid nature of social conversations requires brands to be on a constant state of readiness. In April, two Domino’s employees created a foolish and disgusting video, and posted it to YouTube, setting off a firestorm of coverage on Twitter. It [...]
Back Up the Bus – The Changing PR Timeline
Before I got involved in online marketing in 1994, I helped manage political campaigns. In those days, the formula was pretty consistent. You targeted different voter groups with direct mail, radio and TV. Then, with about two weeks left in the campaign, you brought out the big guns and dropped a big TV and direct [...]
Why the Murder of Old Media is PR’s Best Chance
Since the advent of the printing press, professional opinions have helped shape our own. From Hearst to Murdoch, from Cronkite to Brokaw. Huge companies that employ thousands of trained journalists have helped us understand what’s good and bad, and whom to embrace or fear. Not for long. This is not a flesh wound. The Internet [...]
The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media
As part of my panel on social media at the Worldcom PR conference in Montreal recently (see post below), I created these “7 Deadly Sins of Social Media.” Are you willing to admit your sins in the comments? 1. Deafness Actively listening to what’s being said about your brand is at the core of social [...]
The Social Media Train: Catch It While You Can
Why, What, When & How to Implement Social Media Campaigns Just finished moderating a rousing panel discussion in Montreal at the Worldcom Americas conference. (Worldcom is the world’s largest collective of independent PR firms) Joined by Mike Corak from Off Madison Ave, Stefan Pollack from the Pollack PR Marketing Group, and Diego Biasi from Business [...]
The Official Toothpaste of Social Media
Will the Crest Weekly Toothpaste Launch Work? In a sign that the guys who control ad budgets are getting the value of interactive advertising faster than the agencies that place it, P&G announced recently that they are introducing their new Crest Weekly toothpaste almost entirely through the blogosphere. Samples of Crest Weekly were sent to [...]
Wake Up Agencies – Digital Shops = Trojan Horse
It was bound to happen, and now it has. A big-time digital agency (R/GA) has opened up a full-fledged brand development arm. And whom do you think they will be competing against with this new branding department? Other digital agencies? Nope. They are aiming for traditional agencies and the branding, media placement, and creative budgets [...]
