Public Relations
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 15th, 2010
Last week, I spoke to an audience that consisted of members from several different groups, boards and associations. They are all a part of a large—and important—industry. It was a very interesting presentation. (In the interest of client confidentiality, I am not going to identify the group I spoke with.)
When I present, one of the first questions that I ask is if anyone is tweeting. Not one person in this group raised their hand. It was the first time in more than 18 months that I was in a room that did not have at least 25% of the audience…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 02nd, 2010
There is a very interesting piece by Grant Cardone on the Huffington Post. It has a compelling title: Do PR Firms Make Sense Anymore?
According to the article, Mr. Cardone has had some disappointing results using PR agencies over the years. Not knowing the background of what the objectives and goals were, what the strategy was or how the agencies approached the work, I don’t have the information to comment on that component of his article. But it is never a pleasant experience for anyone when you don’t achieve success.
As to whether PR firms make sense anymore, I believe they do…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 01st, 2010
Measurement in PR has always been a challenge and that hasn’t changed with social media. Understanding and showing the value of what we do isn’t always easy for communicators.
There is a good article on Socialtimes.com that addresses measurement in social media. It’s more from a marketing viewpoint, but it applies to the use of social media in PR or communications efforts.
One of the points in this article talks about bounce rates. It asks: Are people coming to your website from social media sites or networks, but leaving quickly? This is a good question and one that is worth talking about.
Participating in…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 04th, 2010
Shawn Bannon has a great blog post that goes to the heart of media relations: the art of the pitch. It’s worth a read. We all know that the traditional media landscape is changing, but journalists are still incredibly important to PR. Understanding when to pitch them and how is crucial. Understanding when not to pitch and why (and how to explain that to your client or CEO) is also key.
At AHA, we take pitching seriously and go through the AHA Pitch Process to develop a pitch. That means that the pitch has to be short, catch the attention of the…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 03rd, 2010
I came across a great post by Brian Solis on social media integration. It’s worth a read. (Just about everything Brian writes is worth a read.)
Integrating social media into your communication efforts doesn’t stop when you write a strategic plan. It is an ongoing and evolving effort. We have recently had some interesting conversations with a client that we work with on a project basis. This client is someone that we have a huge amount of respect for and we want to see him succeed. His company is young and growing and he has a strong philanthropic focus. He came to…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 27th, 2010
In my role at AHA, I attend conferences, I take online courses, I read blogs and online media, and follow social media and PR visionaries on Twitter and on other social networking sites. I am always learning.
A few years ago, I went through a stage where I felt I had to know all of the social media, social networking, and online tools and technologies to do my job. It became overwhelming and I realized that I started to view each new things as “it.” The old adage that if your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 21st, 2010
There is an interesting article in AdAge.com about the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s decision to continue to make a scheduled stop at a private resort in Labadee, Haiti. It’s a pretty strong article with a great deal of criticism from PR pros. As I was reading it, I was wondering where the other side was…there are no quotes from PR pros saying that they “get” why Royal Caribbean made the decision to continue to make stops in Labadee.
As I read the piece, I was thinking that I must not be reading this article right because I would have advised this cruise…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 21st, 2010
There is an ongoing myth that social media is free. This comes up reasonably often and when we explain the costs associated with developing a social media campaign, quite often the person is shocked.
Danny Brown outlined an extreme budget for social media on his blog post – and even if it is a little dramatic, it is worth a read.
Setting up a Twitter account or Facebook page is free. You can also get a blog set up at no cost. What does cost is the strategy, an audit, ongoing engagement, content creation and measurement. It’s much less than some traditional media…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 19th, 2010
The econsultancy blog has a great post on social interaction measurements. It’s worth a read.
Katie Paine also has another post worth reading (she has a lot of posts worth reading). Here, she talks about problems in calculating the value of PR, based on what the equivalent ad space would cost. Measuring that way is so out-of-date, it always surprises me that it is still used. PR is about relationships, educating people about an issue or cause and helping to inform opinion. Comparing it to what an ad would cost is of no benefit.
With outdated ideas like these continually being brought back to…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 18th, 2010
Katie Paine has a great post entitled: Measuring Engagement is just another term for Measuring Relationships. If you don’t know about Katie Paine, her blog is worth checking out. She is one of the authorities on measurement and there is a wealth of information on her blog.
Measurement has always been a challenge in the world of PR. Back in the day, it was all about newspaper and magazine “clips” and the quantity. And a lot of PR professionals were forced to use clips to show success because that was the standard. At AHA, we have always approached measurement a little…
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