Your PR Architect

This week, I received a message alerting me that the digital sky is falling. It read, in part: The entire digital ecosystem is in crisis — a crisis of trust.  Ecosystem Backyard, by Cedrick May from Wikimedia Commons From issues of brand safety, to growing cries of "fake news," to a slew of personal data breaches across the web, it's clear that trust in the digital industry has eroded considerably, affecting every marketer at brands, agencies, social platforms and beyond.  Do you feel prepared to combat the challenges of trust facing the digital industry? If you're unsure, let's talk about ...  You get the idea. The research sales rep who sent this dire warning is promoting his "insights, forecasts and data they can trust on digital marketing, media and commerce." And perhaps there's value in such an offering. Truth is, I'm disenchanted at the assumption that there's a digital ecosystem.  It's one of those biological phras...

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...

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...