April 30, 2014 by lemakg

Taco Bell’s Transparency

Those who do eat at fast food restaurants probably are not reading the food labels, and those who do not eat at these places probably are. If you take the time to glance over it, some of the words sound more like chemicals than things that we should be putting into our bodies. If you have ever eaten at Taco Bell, chances are you’ve consumed maltodextrin, trehalose, potassium chloride, and sodium phosphates. However, Taco Bell isn’t afraid of sharing this information. In fact, they have it right on their web page!

Any successful public relations professional knows that transparency is the best policy. Taco Bell doesn’t want to scare away their customers if those who read the label misinterpret and then miscommunicate information to others. As a matter of fact, these so called “harmful chemicals” actually serve a purpose. Maltodextrin is a form of mildly sweet sugar used to balance the meet flavor and trehalose is a natural sugar that is used to improved the taste of the seasoned beef. Now does that sound so bad? Taco Bell’s transparency has assured customers that their product is not dangerous. (Even though Taco Bell isn’t the best food to consumer on a daily basis and may eventually lead to some health risks.)

April 28, 2014 by lemakg

How to Land a PR Job

Landing your dream job out of college is probably going to be tricky. However, I’m not one to talk because I’m still in college, but hopefully I’ll remember to apply these tips when I’m ready to venture out into the real world.

Rule number one: Educate yourself on the company who’s going to interview you. Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to know every last detailed thing about them, but at least know their up to date news on Twitter, their website, or Facebook.

Rule number two: Dress the part. If you look like you just rolled out of bed, you probably just should have stayed there.

Rule number three: Although you might have a million smaller jobs on your resume like waitressing or being a camp counselor, make sure you can relate the skills you learned in those jobs to the job you’re applying for now.

Rule number four: Do not overkill your past job experiences on your resume. Mowing the lawn for your neighbor does not count, and neither does feeding their fish for a week while they were vacationing in the Bahamas.

Rule number five: Don’t send the same cover letter to every job opportunity. Your cover letter should be tailored for each application letting the company know why you’re the best candidate.

April 23, 2014 by lemakg

Public Speaking Tips

As a public relations professional, public speaking is what we’re “supposed” to be good at. After all, communicating is our specialty. However, three out of every four people have a fear of public speaking, including us!

Here is a spin on some classic tricks that you might have once thought were handy:

1. Bag the idea of picturing your audience naked. Instead, picture them happy! The audience will feed off of your vibes. If you smile and continue to make eye contact with people they’ll smile back, giving you the confidence booster you probably need.

2. Do not dress like you’re about to make a speech in front of the whole nation. Dress for the audience. However, that doesn’t mean wear what the smelly kid in the sweatshirt has been wearing all year. By adjusting your appearance to your audience they will find you more relatable, trustworthy, and let’s be honest a polo is more comfortable than a suffocating tie.

3. Know your material. However, memorizing it word for word is not fun for you or for your audience. Keep them interested by giving them the opportunity to engage in conversation, which may encourage them to ask questions at the end.

4. Whether it be 5 minutes to an hour, no one wants to sit through a boring speech. Triple check that your content will actually be interesting to other people than yourself or your lame coworker. If you’re well organized with interesting material to share, no one will remember if you kept your hands in your pockets the whole time or were having a bad hair day!

April 21, 2014 by lemakg

12 Unforgivable Writing Mistakes

Although everyone makes occasional writing errors, there are 12 unforgivable mistakes that can make you less credible as a PR professional.

Fewer versus less: Fewer- referring to things that can be counted. Less- referring to volumes or to things that cannot be counted.
Affect versus effect: Affect- to influence. Effect– result
Pronoun/ antecedent agreement
Misspellings
It’s versus its: It’s- it is. Its– possessive
Misuse of the semicolon
Alot versus a lot… alot is NOT a word
Inconsistency with writing styles (AP,Oxford, MLA)
Poorly cited stats and quotes
Then versus than: Then- referring to a point in time or in addition to. Than- used for comparisons
Lose versus loose: Lose- opposite of win. Loose- referring to something that doesn’t fit or is insecure
Stolen content

I agree with everything on this list! However, I definitely would have included the difference between you’re and your. Check out other opinions and additions to this list here!

April 1, 2014 by lemakg

Tips for Handling Negative Comments on Social Media

With new technologies coming out year by year, the task of a public relations professional is getting increasingly difficult. In the past if a customer had a complaint it would usually be very private, either by phone call or letter. Today, if a customer has a problem they do not hesitate to put it on the Internet for all to see. Social media can make or break a company’s reputation, unless they handle customer complaints in an appropriate way.

4 Social Media Monitoring and Management Tips:

Track all complaints
Respond quickly in public
Stay positive publicly
Deal with details privately

Valid Complaints:

Valid complaints are the only complaints that must be taken into account. These are problems that the customer is having issues with and you must take action immediately.

Document the comment so you don’t lose track of it or so it’s not deleted.
Don’t be frustrated. The customer is seeking you out to give your business a second chance. Take time to think about a thorough response.
Handle their issue with respect.

More than likely if you handle the customer’s problem with respect and ease they will be forgiving and keep buying products serviced from your company.

Trolls:

Trolls are a type of public spam that is ridiculing your business with unrelated, malicious complaints. They are hunting for attention and their comments should be deleted.

Responses:

If you messed up, always admit to it. Remember the customer service policy that, “the customer is always right.” Publicly send an apology via social media with a playful tone to keep your business in a friendly, caring light. Privately contact the customer with the complaint, fix the problem, and give them a discount or some kind of benefit with their next purchase. Explain to the customer what went wrong and share with them how you’re going to fix this problem for the future. With these simple steps it is likely that you will have a satisfied customer who may continue to use your company’s products or services.

How do you handle customer complaints?

Make a comment here!

March 31, 2014 by lemakg

The Public Relations Problem with Public Relations Firms

A company’s Public Relations creates the opportunity for a business’ reputation to either strive or dive. A large factor can start from within their pitches to journalists. Some mistakes that may come from pitches include:

Pitching the wrong sources: Take the time to learn which media sources want story materials and which don’t. Journalists/ media members can change positions or industries on a regular basis. A PR professional may pitch a story to a journalist about the journalist’s radio station that they may have stopped hosting months ago. Stay updated with the journalists you’re sending pitches to or you’re wasting your firms time and money.

Pitching irrelevant material: Journalists writing articles are looking for specific story angles for their pieces. Don’t write a pitch or boiler plate to a journalist that is off-topic. You will not be taken seriously for further work and again you are wasting your company’s time and money.

Not all PR is created equal: With the online universe constantly growing it may be difficult to receive a large number of media hits on your stories. For this reason it is vital to disperse your stories through as many mediums as possible. Eventually, your medium should be narrowed to the most effective one that gets attention from the greatest audience. However, you need to make sure your exposure is worth the money. Could the same message be almost or as effective through email? Another thought to consider is that unless you’re a big brand company chances are most of the media does not want to cover your news releases. While creating your pitches you need to make sure your story is as relevant as possible and tied to current news.

March 24, 2014 by lemakg

10 Online PR Mistakes to Avoid

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. Unfortunately, online public relations is one area that has the potential to make some huge mistakes.

The top 10 mistakes to avoid include:

1. You undervalue press releases as part of your link building campaign- a press release is the most effective way to get your story noticed by journalists, which may lead to a link in a published article.

2. Your press release doesn’t have a clear single focus- keep it clear, concise, and straight to the point. If a journalist wants to read more about it you can provide a link where they can find more information.

3. Your press release isn’t newsworthy- compare your news to relevant posts on other high quality sites and see if they are similar. If not, maybe you should reevaluate if the journalist or reader will find it interesting.

4. Your press release isn’t getting into the right hands- the most effective ways of getting your press release to the right outlet include sending it to journalists who have written about you in the past, journalists who you’ve carefully researched, and journalists who are on a large distribution list.

5. You don’t keep control over everything- the network of people your client and who they work with may be large, meaning the chances of miscommunication is at a high risk. If you keep control over everything, problems will stay at a minimum.

6. Your press release isn’t structured properly- spend time on creating a worthy, creative headline that will draw journalists in.

7. You aren’t ready for follow up from a journalist- have a plan. Imagine what questions the journalists might ask you and have some answers ready.

8. You don’t follow up- no one likes to deal with pushy and rude people, however, if you don’t follow up you won’t land any stories. Be polite and patient to gain what you need.

9. You leave the journalist with too much work to do- journalists don’t have time to research uninteresting stories. Grab the journalists interest right away and write as if it were going to be published.

10. You don’t maximize your chance of getting editorial links- a good press release is key to increasing your chances of getting editorial links.