Tips, Tricks & Tools for Free Publicity
I’m wagging my tail because Bulldog Reporter has added The Publicity Hound’s Blog to its roundup of other excellent PR blogs known simply as The ‘Dog Blogs.
Bulldog, the website for news, issues and best practices for the public relations and corporate communications industry, also features blogs by Brian Solis, Richard Laermer, Peter Himler and others whose work I respect.
Thanks, Bulldog. I’m in good company.
Company PR departments spend hours—entire days even—poring over a press release, picking apart every paragraph and sentence—and then waiting for multiple layers of approval before it goes live.
Everyone puts their stamp of approval on the document that includes words and phrases THEY like. If only the readers were that receptive.
The next time you write a press release, or copy for marketing materials, or your CEO’s next speech, don’t guess about whether the message will resonate. Know exactly which words and phrases drive persuasive communications.
Word wizard Dr. Frank Luntz will discuss “Words That Work in the Press, Politics & Public Relations” during an audio teleconference at 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 4, hosted by Bulldog Reporter. Registration is $99 per person. You can lean more and register here.
If Luntz looks familiar, it’s probably because he’s been a guest on almost every talk show in America, including Meet the Press, Nightline, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, The Jim Lehrer News Hour, The O’Reilly Factor, Tavis Smiley, Montel Williams, and Hardball. He also served as a consultant to the award-winning NBC hit show “The West Wing.”
The “Instant Response” focus group technique Luntz pioneered, in which focus group respondents “dial” their approval or disapproval on hand-held gadgets, has been profiled on 60 Minutes, Good Morning America (on Election Day 2008) and on the award-winning PBS show Frontline.
His focus groups have become so influential that presidential candidate Barack Obama had this to say following the PBS presidential debate, “When Frank Luntz invites you to talk to his focus group, you talk to his focus group.”
During next Tuesday’s call, you’ll learn how to grab your audiences’ attention and, ultimately, influence their behavior. You’ll also discover how to maximize what Luntz e calls “ROL” (return on language) in areas ranging from corporate reputation and employee satisfaction to product development and media relations.
Occasionally, I’ll get a call from somebody who thinks it might be “fun and interesting” to be in the world of PR, or a publicist. But they don’t want to go back to college and spend more than $50,000 on a degree in PR or communications.
So they ask me what the best way is to break into the business. I suggest they follow the same people I follow:
—BL Ochman and her whatsnext blog
—Book marketing guru John Kremer and his excellent blog and weekly ezine
—Anything published at the Bulldog Reporter site, particularly its Journalists Speak Out interview series.
I’m adding Gaetan Giannini Jr.’s new book, “Marketing Public Relations: A Marketer’s Approach to Public Relations and Social Media” (Prentice Hall, $93.33) to my list. Several years ago, Giannini, business department chair at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pa., seached for a public relations textbook tailored to marketing students, instead of communications or journalism students. When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he decided to write one.
He has had an extensive marketing background, having worked for several years in sales and marketing for industrial instrumentation companies before landing at Cedar Crest . In addition to writing a public relations book from a marketer’s perspective, he reveled in the opportunity to write about the burgeoning world of social media, which he claims has been widely ignored by academics.
PR and social media from a marketing perspective
“Most of the textbooks that were written about Web 2.0 were written on the technical side. As far as I know, there is not one textbook out there at this point that covers this topic from a marketing perspective,” he said.
Each chapter begins with a PR success story. They include:
Practical experience for students
What really makes this book a must-read for anyone going into PR or publicity, or for marketing student who want to learn more about PR, are the “chapter objectives” that kick off each chapter and show show students what they should be able to do after reading it, and the three special sections at the end of each chapter. They include:
One of the problems with books about social media is that sections can be out of date by the time the ink is dry. Still, this is a valuable book that encourages the student to not just learn it, but do it. My only wish is that it had included informaton about the importance of using keywords in press releases so they are search-engine friendly.
Don’t let the steep price deter you. There’s three times as much content as you’ll find in most other PR books, and most chapters tackle a topic in-depth, with lots of practical tips.
I loved the chapter on Building a Connector List, and how to determine the types of media that can help you spread your message. I’ll be sharing those tips later this week and excerpting more from the book in the months ahead. (Disclosure: I contributed to the book.)
While “Marketing Public Relations” is a textbook for mid-level marketing students—one which Giannini will use in his classes this fall and which will be available for general consumption for educational institutions by spring semester—he is quick to note that the content is perfect for any organization that wants ideas and strategies to promote its products and services.
By the way, I love the press release about the book.
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The Publicity Hound
