Your PR Architect

Every few months, someone's predicting the demise of the press release. Photo by Dustin Lee via Unsplash.com. See more at http://bit.ly/Free-RetroSupply-Goods And, if they're an editor or blogger or journalist, I think: baloney. My colleague Denny Wilkins shared with me a "press releases are dead"  post from Medium . The writer argues that issuing news releases is a zombie activity. Something PR people do automatically. A practice that cannot be killed.  And, like most who call for an end to news releases, the writer bemoans the flood of releases that clutter most editors' email in-boxes. He praises videos and Tweets that tell an organization's story digitally, and therefore "better." Because Tweets and videos don't clutter his in-box. Stop whining. You receive an over-abundance of releases because your employer gutted the editorial staff. You're now receiving releases those departed editors no longer read. Because they'r...

It would be too easy to judge Justine Sacco's Dec. 20 hara-kiri on Twitter. It would also be premature, because as of this writing, she's still an employee of IAC and its boss, Barry Diller. Memo to Justine: ask friends to round up empty copier paper boxes for when you're back in the office.You'll need 'em. Justine Sacco, via NY Daily News Details on Justine Sacco's self-inflicted PR disaster are here, along with the preposterous Gogo tie-in. Calling this the internet equivalent of drunk dialing is an understatement. There's plenty of stupid to go around: For a PR person, Sacco's now-deleted Twitter account contained a wealth of borderline coarse comments that were stunning in their stupidity. Teachable moment: just because you have only 400 followers on Twitter doesn't mean the whole world can't see you be stupid. Diller has owned and sold more media properties than almost everyone, including Rupert Murdoch. He's not a shy pe...

Home Depot, like many large companies, outsourced the running of its Twitter feed to a nameless marketing "agency." When the agency posted a racially offensive tweet, HD acted swiftly to sever its relationship with the agency. Read about it here:  http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2013/11/07/home-depot-tweets-alleged-racist-photo/ Brad Shaw of Home Depot, via Ad Age Maybe the practice of entrusting your brand presence to an outside contractor isn't as disastrous as it sounds. But someone, somewhere needs to have a broader perspective. With Twitter's huge IPO taking place this week, all eyes were focused on the micro-blogging site. Brands can live or die on Twitter. The irony: two years ago, Ad Age lauded Home Depot for its internal team's social media acumen .Why did this strategy go off the rails? So cheers to Home Depot for cutting its ties with an insensitive agency. But who the heck thought placing HD's online brand in the hands of a non-employee w...