Your PR Architect

One of PR's first rules: know your audience. Or, don't pitch a story about Manolo Blahnik shoes to Sports Illustrated. The NFL recently sent emails from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and ex-coach and current TV pitchman Bill Cowher, telling me all they're doing to address the issue of head injury and trauma among young and pro football players. Here's a link . People who play football experience head injury. No dispute there. There's a reason high schools with football teams hire a physician to attend the games. And TV news magazines have devoted airtime to stories of suicide among former NFL players whose behavior may have ties to head-to-head collisions on the field. Another of my basic PR rules: ask a reader to take one action. And here's where the NFL's e-newsletter strategy misses the uprights. First, I don't have kids, nephews or neighbors whose kids play league football. I've never coached a team. I'm not the right demograp

Today, I'm sharing a link to a 2013 post on the Disney Parks blog, written by my friend and colleague Bernadette Davis. Bernadette is a communications manager for the Disney Parks in Florida, and often helps out in special events that take place on the property. Bernadette's post isn't a deep exploration of some industry topic, nor is it an essay on Florida tourism.  It's not an ad masquerading as a blog, either. It does share some interesting news about an event hosted by Disney that focuses on giving young people a closer look at career opportunities in sports. What makes this blog post successful? You get a small glimpse of Bernadette -- her interests, her family, and what she does -- in a brief sentence. Personalization is important in a blog post. Her blog gives exposure to a newsworthy activity that might not gain visibility if shared as a conventional news release. It shows that Disney's corporate responsibility extends well beyond Soarin' and cha

LinkedIn wants to be the business equivalent of Facebook. Too often, however, it's the social media version of McDonalds, with no room for individual preferences of its customers. By Nan Palmero from San Antonio, TX, USA (Linkedin Chocolates   Uploaded by JohnnyMrNinja) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons LinkedIn's frequent automated emails are triggered by minor updates to a user's profile. Many LinkedIn members tweak their profiles to reflect new skills or achievements. The site uses these minor updates to generate automated "say congrats" emails that may boost its traffic. ("Congrats" is the lazy person's way of saying "congratulations," "way to go," or some more-authentic kindness.) It's true that I've recently branded what I've been doing for more than a year as "DSK Writing and Communications." I didn't get a new job. However, you may get an

Try to think of a time when anyone you know said: "Hey, let's pick up a Sbarro's pizza for dinner." Odds are: never. Sbarro isn't a destination eatery. You mainly find them in shopping malls and airports, and unless it's the lunch hour, the meal selections often look as if they've sat under a bright heat lamp longer than a Kardashian. Today, Sbarro filed for bankruptcy reorganization a second time. You could target plenty of reasons why this chain's brand has been eclipsed by Papa John's, Domino's, or even Pizza Hut. Possible causes: saturated fat, sodium, or the reality that no one over age 17 enjoys the experience of eating in a mall's food court under flying sparrows. My view: Sbarro might have done better to personalize its brand to help connect with consumers. They clearly don't have the media ad dollars to compete with Papa John's (and quarterback and Buick pitchman Peyton Manning), leaving their social media presence

I'm not a political science whiz, nor am I an expert in geopolitics. My maternal grandparents emigrated from Russia before they met in the U.S. That's it. So I can't pretend to have any ethnic knowledge of the issues embroiling Ukraine, Crimea, and Russia. But from a PR perspective, I ask: Did Mr. Putin really believe a couple of weeks of glowing TV coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi would erase any notion of him as a control-hungry leader?  Is there no one in Moscow who can teach him to scowl less often?  And does the sight of Russian armored vehicles say anything besides "war," rather than "defending our people in Ukraine?" We should all know better.

Last week, this blog outlined the benefits of enlisting a PR professional to produce your business blog. When you share industry insights and winning strategies, your blog can be an effective instrument in your overall marketing ensemble. Writing and maintaining a blog is only half of the job. You also need a strategy to promote it. You can-- Link to your blog from your website.  Reference it in a Twitter post or LinkedIn user group.  Bring it to the attention of a Paper.li editor. Include links in your Constant Contact email.  Maybe even send out a news release. (How  retro .) Your blog is one instrument in your marketing ensemble. And yes, tell your friends. Should you use Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest to draw readers to your blog? It's a tough call. Facebook, first and foremost, is a social network. Your friends are sharing family photos, cat humor, vacation photos, and the musings of George Takei. There's a chance they'll enjoy looking at your busines