New Media Prof Blog » public relations

The Conversation Changed

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:36:57 +0000

A must watch for all Public Relations, advertising and marketing professionals.

Where are the doctors at the white house?

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:05:24 +0000

This has nothing to do with Public Relations or Marketing…or does it? After a major debacle regarding healthcare reform (politically), the President’s own version of a healthcare proposal has been posted online. You can download a PDF explaining the highlights. You’ll notice some marketing and PR when you visit this part the White House website. We all know the administration has been criticized for too much PR after the election, too much exposure for the President himself and preaching transparency but not practicing it. Take a look for yourself and especially my students should study it as an evolution in modern PR. I just have one question: why aren’t any of the 19 doctors in Congress invited to the healthcare summit at the White House this week?

Toyota PR

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:48:51 +0000

We’ve all been watching the missteps in PR that Toyota has made. Is it a cultural divide between East and West? Is it a lack of mea culpa at the top? Every student of PR knows from the famous Tylenol case in 1982 that action must be swift and it must come from the top without wavering and the most important action is safety first, revenue second. Hard to do, no doubt. But the moment the Chairman of Johnson & Johnson learned of the cyanide poisonings involving extra strength tylenol, he pulled all tylenol products off the shelves and halted production. The company’s market value dropped by at least a billion dollars. And they went one step further, after the episode was over, they led the charge to create the tamper-proof caps that we all wrestle with today. We know that Toyota President, Akio Toyoda has said he was ‘deeply sorry’ but now says he isn’t coming to testify before Congress in the U.S. And we know that dealers have worked feverishly to meet recall demands with a fix for the sticky gas pedals. But one issue befell another with faulty brakes on the Prius, a possible recall of steering in Corollas and the snowball gets bigger as it goes downhill. What is interesting is how Japan views the debacle. Interesting article on that in the Christian Science Monitor. How many times do we see that lagging in reaction to a crisis just doesn’t work. Now Toyota has a long-term perception problem – how long – we’ll see.

Social Media Snake Oil

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:15:48 +0000

I wish someone would explain to me why there seems to be a new so-called profession of social media experts. First of all, we haven’t had social networking long enough for any of us to be true ’experts.’ Yet, I see loads of people charging huge amounts of money to teach others the fundamentals of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…when in fact, if you sit down and focus on each one of those for a few hours each day, you’ll learn it by doing just like most of us have. So, I ask you – are they selling snake oil? Now, let me be clear, I DO use social networking tools and I DO see good value in them for business and I DO understand people charging for their transfer of knowledge (expertise) about how best to use these new tools in Public Relations and Marketing for different industry sectors. On size does not fit all especially when you make the leap from personal social networking to your business. But that’s about sharing professional expertise in Marketing, for example, not ‘how to upload a photo.’ And if I could send a message across all my social media networks, it would be for everyone in various groups to which I belong, to STOP selling themselves in every post. And beware of the snake oil and the price of it.

Emerson Class

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:22:14 +0000

I’m thrilled to be teaching a class at Emerson College in Boston beginning this summer and if I ‘pass’ muster then two classes next Fall. It is exciting and challenging and I can’t wait for classes to start. The summer class is called Public Relations Management (MK620) in the graduate program for the Department of Integrated Marketing Communications’ and you can expect a lot of interactivity and spontaneity because that IS required in public relations. My point of view, of course comes from being a Broadcast Journalist for 20 years and knowing good PR and bad PR. As Executive Producer at WBZ-TV CBS/Boston, I saw it all. Every student will finish the class having a great gut instinct about crisis communications, PR strategies for different types of clients and how to deal with any reporter’s question. And finally, today’s PR person has to be on her/his toes with regard to new media and the best way to get the client’s ’story’ out there. We’re going to have a blast! Special thanks to Emerson Professor, Cathy Waters for having me as guest speaker in her IMC classes and for ushering me in.