Your PR Architect

Had enough of the content tidal wave yet? The web offers more than "stream of consciousness." It's scream of consciousness -- a term I attribute to the  artist Carolyn Kassnoff around 2001 -- but it's more accurate than ever. Every thought, idea, wry observation, or snarky Kardashian slap finds its way into the torrent of social media. And no place is it more evident than Twitter. PR pro David Ericson recently blogged about many ways to use Twitter for public relations . It's a good read, describing how Twitter's alliance with Google helps the social media site reach casual web consumers who aren't (yet) Twitter members. So, if you're a PR pro who's working to get recognition for a client's services and products, there's value to including a well-planned Twitter strategy. Yogi Berra, C. 1956, via Wikimedia Commons But there's another way for PR people to leverage Twitter, although you need a registered Twitter account. I...

Three recent unrelated retail experiences did little to assure me that we'll be shopping in actual stores for nonperishable goods, five years from now. Each event was so illustrative that I decided to name each store below. I don't know if there's any PR strategy that would persuade me to alter my opinion about each merchant. Because retail involves hundreds of individual interactions between the store staff and shoppers, rather than a massive message campaign. Here's today's scorecard: By M.O. Stevens (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Dollar Tree - I don't expect concierge service in a discount store with "dollar" in its name. But when a heated, f-bomb-laden shouting match breaks out between two surly males at the slow-as-molasses checkout, I expect the store's staff to do more than stand around and watch the drama unfold. Kids in line were crying. Ís dialing 911 too c...

To you, it may be mid-summer. To a PR person, it's now the Christmas season. By Sigismund von Dobschütz (Own work)  [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Public relations people can't use regular calendars. Especially if they're working on product publicity. Most need to gear their PR strategies to reach consumers in the November-December retail window. Which is why I loathe "Christmas in July" media events. The people at Cision have created a 2014 Holiday Gift Guide pitching kit. You can download it here. It may be useful if you have clients who sell packaged goods, pricey hams, electronic products, or sports items, and who count on PR to help drive their year-end sales. Such a "kit" can help you spend the next few weeks convincing print, broadcast, and online media to include those products in their roundups. You may get a 1...