Planet Relations

That's the important question for green building companies and pr professionals. What exactly is the impact that social media and blogs are having on traditional news delivery? Well, according to a recent survey of US journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom group, blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability [...]

Sometimes it's the littlest of things that help us communicate in more effective ways. The following phrase was at the bottom of Bill Reed's (Regenesis Group and Integrative Design Collaborative) email signature block. Things happen – Please follow up critical Emails with a phone call if you have not had a reply to your message Straight, [...]

Many posts (here, here, here) have debated whether PR works, and if not who’s to blame. Some have approached the topic from the company’s perspective; others from the PR firm’s perspective. Here’s my short take on it, especially when working with smaller companies. 1. Ensure that clear goals are set – what are you trying [...]

Success usually brings critics out of the woodwork (hopefully FSC-certified wood). When that happens, it's important that companies and organizations don't forget about their base of support. Clear and proactive communication to those 'already in your camp' is vital so that they 'stay in your camp'. More importantly, if these supporters know the facts they [...]

The challenge with public relations, critics contend is that it's too hard to measure. What is the correlation between 'awareness' and concrete action?  For an ongoing project, our team is marketing an insurance careers program to community college students in California. Yes, their initial reaction is similar to yours. B-O-R-I-N-G! But with a little education [...]

In a follow up to my Google as a Clipping Service post, I want to plug the social bookmarking service Del.icio.us. For those unfamiliar, think of it as the 'Favorites' tool in Internet Explorer or the 'Bookmarking' feature in Firefox. The only difference is that the bookmarks live on the web and not on your [...]

Just about every organization regardless of business structure (i.e., non-profit, for-profit) suffers from either a lack of communication staff time, or an insufficient outreach budget, or (likely) both. So how can organizations overcome these communication hurdles? They tap in to their self-interested stakeholders.  First, you must recognize that customers/members/suppliers are motivated by self interest. They [...]

It's troubling when employees read about company initiatives in the mainstream press rather than hearing from management. Even worse is when employees hear about initiatives from customers who read about them in the press. According to an IABC publication called Vital Communications, many firms "conclude that externally-directed communication is the sole purpose of a formal [...]

Imagine a room full of people with grease pencils tirelessly pouring over trade journals like American Vegetable Grower, Logging and Sawmilling Journal, Produce News, and Medical Construction and Design Magazine. These readers work for clipping/media monitoring services that scour print publications looking for key words like 'compost', 'plywood', 'organic citrus', and 'patient care'. Businesses pay [...]

In 2006, the press release celebrated it's 100 year anniversary — not that too many people took notice. Since then, there has been a lot of talk in the high tech pr industry about the 'death of the traditional press release' and the emergence of the social media release (aka new media release). The best [...]