2015 PR Apprentice is underway!

College students from across western New York are now brainstorming creative ideas to promote an early childhood literacy program as part of the PRSA Rochester chapter's 2015 PR Apprentice competition. Check back for details.

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You're not going to like the way this looks

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(The following post is 100% free of political commentary. But it does mention a few blowhards.) When's the last time you bought a well-made suit? Not the Haggar separates some retailers sell, but a good suit that would last a few years, until fashion dictums made it obsolete? Probably not anytime recently. Casual Fridays at many businesses extended to Casual Everydays. Which, outside of Wall Street, law firms, and TV anchor desks, usually meant fewer suits and ties. My last suit was hand-tailored with Italian silk, and cost the equivalent of a mortgage payment. I don't need to buy another suit anytime soon. This only partially explains why Tailored Brands, the parent company of Men's Wearhouse and Joseph A. Bank, announced last week that 250 of its 1,500 stores would close this year. Not good news for a brand that had some cachet with consumers. By Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons Tailored Brands' CEO reported last week t...
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Facebook is PR for the rest of us

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I don't do resolutions. Unless I'm performing as John Hancock in a community theatre production of "1776." But for 2015, I have a modified mindset regarding social media. What I read about my friends on Facebook is not their real lives, and I'm not going to compare my life to theirs. Your Facebook friends will post their successes, their celebrations, family photos, and maybe snarky comments about Kardashians and Biebers. Those friends are less likely to post about their cramps. Their firings. Their financial losses. Their private addictions. Queen, c. 1985, by Thomas Steffan (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0  (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) via Wikimedia Commons What we see on Facebook and other social media are a kind of PR version of their lives. Their "best of" experiences. It's like a CD of Queen's  Greatest Hits . You'll hear "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and...
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Earning your PR stripes

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I don't know how a startup PR company can claim to have 330,000 media contacts. Email addresses, sure. But I've been doing PR for more than 30 years, and I'd be stretched to say I actually know 10,000 media contacts. You need to earn those relationships, not merely collect a list of email addresses and shepherd them via software. That's what Cision does. By André Karwath aka Aka (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5  (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons But, when an ambitious company called  PR Zebra tweeted me and asked for "support" for their concierge-style PR business, I checked out their website, not just their thunderclap.it crowd-sourcing link. They promise you local, regional, and national coverage. And they've posted a few news releases, often for small business owners and entrepreneurs. They offer a three-tiered pricing strategy that's relatively affordable. Like a lawn service. Nothing wrong with this ap...
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