It’s the first Monday back after the holiday season. We’ve opened presents, visited friends and family, ate and drank, and ushered in not just a new year, but also a new decade. Welcome 2010!
We have seen many changes in the areas of public relations and communications over the past decade. For one, social media has changed how we do our jobs. It will be interesting to see what this year brings.
The Bad Pitch Blog has an excellent post on holiday tie-ins and what does and doesn’t work. In this post, they showcase examples of the good, the bad and the ugly. One that stands out as great is PNC, a financial services group. For the past 26 years they provided the PNC Christmas Price Index. Using the classic song The 12 Days of Christmas, in a fun and lively way, they showcase the how prices have increased or fallen over the past year.
They “own” this area of Christmas and this year’s website is great. It is an educational tool. It was made to explain some things, while being entertaining—and it’s well done.
When we are working to generate media and blogger attention, we often look at the time of year and what traditional holidays or events happen that we can tie into. Events, holidays and other seasonal traditions can provide strong opportunities for PR, if it’s done right.
There is an interesting piece by Jeremy Porter at Journalistics.com listing the 10 reasons why media relations will get easier in 2010.
Porter hits the nail on the head when he outlines the challenges that any of us who work in media relations face—one is that journalists are busy. Getting their attention isn’t easy, even when you have a good story. The profession of journalism has changed drastically because of social media. Journalists now have more work than ever (technology makes the world a much more connected place), there are less of them to do the work, and media outlets now expect their reporters to blog, tweet and shoot video for the website, no matter whether you are a print publication or a broadcaster. And competition has heated up; there are some hot bloggers out there that cover specific beats that are of interest to them.
Chris Brogan has an excellent post on the point that social media needs to be a team sport. In it he focuses on social media and the need for a team approach, but I think that it is worth applying that approach to communications as a whole.
Connecting with your stakeholders, with your public – with your community works best when it is approached holistically. You can have a great PR strategy and not be able to execute on the plan if there isn’t a connection between what you want to share, how you want to start and maintain the conversation and where the content comes from.
I had the opportunity recently to co-facilitate a three-day planning session with Della Smith (who I am proud to call my colleague, mentor and friend). The participants for this session were a diverse group of smart professionals who sit on council as well as the organization’s senior staff.
One of the components of the session was a short overview on social media that Della and I presented to the group. It was very interesting. This is a field that hasn’t really embraced social media as much as some others and I have to admit I had some concerns about whether or not they would find it of interest.