Your PR Architect

Public relations is often about building relationships. Some smart PR people get this. Others don't. For example: "I know you're the special kind of person who wants to help other people." I'm not sure if Steve Harrison really knows that. Or knows much about public relations, beyond providing all sorts of advice on how to get the attention of TV segment booking producers. That's what he sells on his website. What I do know about Steve Harrison: he hasn't Clue One about respecting his potential customers. The five come-on emails he sent me over a two-hour period told me all I need to know about Steve's mastery of public relations. (I signed up for a webinar, recommended by a colleague. Not spam that rivals the barrage I got from FTD around Mother's Day.) In a five-day span: 10 emails from Steve. Each as relentless and self-promoting as the last. A TV studio control room. By Wing1990hk (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Com...

I didn't get the job. I was reminded about this when Facebook notified me that a company I'd "liked" had changed its name. They didn't hire me. That's life. I love my current job. But, in 2014, I interviewed twice with an auto parts manufacturer in a rusting town. They wanted someone with deep expertise in internal and external communications. Someone experienced in winning over skeptical old-line workers with union ties. Someone who'd done internal videos. Photo: KarleHorn at German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 or CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/ 3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons Me? Not quite. They didn't hire me, and I politely asked what skills I needed to win that job. They said: "We wanted someone with more experience in social media." That hurt. I had social media experience, creating Facebook and Twitter accounts, podcasts and blogs for clients. Maybe I could forgive them for not reading my res...

When you need to drop 2,000 words on "what PR Is not about," as a recent online opinion piece does, you're too much in love with the sound of your own words. And losing readers with every sentence. By Joost J. Bakker (Flickr: Do The Right Thing graffiti Amsterdam) [CC BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Is this really a checklist? It feels like a rant -- a  long-winded epistle about what PR is not about that strayed into TLDR* territory after 300 words.  So, in the interest of brevity and casting PR in a less-defensive light, here's a much shorter list of what public relations is: 1. Public relations is about building trust between an organization and its stakeholders: customers, members, employees, investors, partners, and media. Do this by telling the truth.  2. PR is  about helping organizations and their leadership act and sound smart, innovative, and authentic.  3. PR is about doing th...

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...

My earliest PR successes came from creating newsletters for business-to-business clients, alumni, and employees. These publications -- semi-weekly, monthly, and quarterly -- each helped grow relationships between my clients and their constituents (customers). And none of them exist today. Casualties of the digital age? In some ways. In the 1980s, desktop publishing gave almost everyone the power of the press. And some resulting newsletters were ghastly, much like some of today's blogs. But, as the internet grew, printing and mailing costs increased, and managers and marketers switched to online content: e-newsletters, or some other digital solutions. Those managers overlooked an important factor: their audiences . People who view a newsletter as an emblem of a relationship. They're accustomed to physical connections, and willingly invest their resources and time to support those relationships. After spending their workday staring at an optically challenging computer scree...

In my favorite film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there's a scene where the heroes step off a train at a rural town in Bolivia. Sundance takes a few steps into the plaza, and promptly steps into cow dung -- while Butch extols how much more they can buy with their stolen dollars and pesos. Sundance surveys the run-down plaza, looks at Butch, and says: "What could they have here that you'd possibly want to buy?" The scene comes to mind (minus the cow dung) every time I get an email from AmazonLocal, Groupon, or LivingSocial. Each of these online deal aggregators uses the power of social networking and deal-making with retailers to offer half-price deals to members. Call it social couponing. Ninety percent of these deals are things I would never, ever buy. Even after I've customized my Groupon settings. I've purchased one or two of these offers. The majority, however, are for goods or services I don't find valuable. Is this a $20 burger? O...