Be a PR Star

But of course you know that fame is fleeting and you're only as good as your next "hit".    And of course it makes a difference in the community in which you work.  If you're doing PR for some large company in a large city, it's almost twice as difficult as it is if you're in a small city where the newspapers (whatever's left of them) are looking for stories and don't have that many reporters so they depend upon PR professionals for interesting stories at times.

There are 15 very good points in this article that first appeared in DaveFleets.com and they ask for one more point - which I would say is:

#16 - go volunteer to do PR for a nonprofit social service agency and / or arts group so you'll see how the other half without resources live.  It will make you more creative!

Some Good Advice

Nothing like starting off the New Year with some good advice about who to pitch a story to in various media.  Or how to start a media list with the emails of those who might be interested in your story or concept.  The Social Media Today site has a good article on that subject written by Carrie Morgan.  As a former member of the 4th Estate, I think she's right on in finding out who to target where.  As your release hits the desks of these people, just pray there isn't a 5 alarm fire or high profile crime story that can knock you out of the running for inclusion. 

Even with the best of advice and best practices, PR has been and looks like it always will be a crap shoot.  But those who succeed in developing good relations with media, there will be a pay off on a slow news day.

Home for the Holidaze

If you read my other blog, you'll know that this has been a busy summer for me as an artist and photographer.  I apologize for not posting anything here since June, which seems like it was years ago as I gaze at the snow here in Portland Maine.  But I ran across this very good article about using social media for your brand.  It's a hard thing to do, not to toot your own horn these days, but in dealing with social media, I think it's good advice.

Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday and a Bright, Prosperous New Year - with a cherry on top!

What One Thing do Baseball and PR Have in Common?

Today a first for me - writing a headline that is a question and almost sounds like a joke!  But it's not when you think of PR as pitching - which is quite important in baseball as well.  Except when it comes to pitchers duels, those really bore the crap out of me.  But enough of me, what about you when it comes to pitching?  If you're like me, the news release headline is probably the biggest of the pitches I'll use.  But Sarah Skerik begs to differ with us and I think she's got some good points in her article here.  And she is specific as to the WHY being the biggest W in terms of pitching, especially when it comes to social media.

Wave of the Future?

There's nothing like trying to predict the future to catch someone's interest.  I think that's why astrology is still featured in the local fish wraps and right here on the internet.  But what about the evolution of the internet and how we interact with each other?  I'll bet that probably half the folks reading this blog were not on the internet as much five years ago as they are now.  Although the topic isn't strictly PR oriented it does have some bearing on how we get our messages noticed in our brave new world now and five years into the future.  We can thank Josh Miller over at Medium.com for his insights.

More Social Media Rules

Like those magazines that headline 5 Ways to Fill in the Blank or 8 Things You Should Know, we've now got another list of 10 Rules for Attaining Success in Social Media - click here.

However, this time the advice is coming from a worthy source - Guy Kawasaki.  After surviving two stints working for Steve Jobs at Apple, Kawasaki has become a go-to guy about all things Silicon Valley and start ups.  His advise in the article is spot on IMHO.

The only "What???" moment I had was that he tweets the same stuff all day because of the way people jump on and off Twitter.  We used to do that in radio news as well.  We figured the average listener was in the car for a max of 90 minutes, so the first 90 minutes at work was writing all new newscasts.  After that, we would rotate the stories every 90 minutes.  You also find that in TV on CNN - although I think that they rotate every hour....

Special thanks to Joe Nalven at the Digital Art Guild for turning me on to this story!

Centerfold

My Viva Cuba show made the cut for the centerfold for the Portland Press Herald today.  I had a story with legs (not many Mainers have been to Cuba apparently) and submitted the information in the right format and met their deadline for a photo.  And most of all, I was lucky!  PR is such a crap shoot. I don't mind giving Imogen Binnie and Space Gallery a little extra coverage either!

I know I'm kinda cheating here with just re-posting what I had up for my Waiting for the Muse blog, but it shows that perseverance and luck will eventually win out!