The application of public relations and the use of advertising are sometimes misunderstood, igniting a series of unanswered questions for companies needing to create awareness for themselves. (Read more…)

eReleases’ Mickie Kennedy was the executive producer of the No Agenda podcast on Saturday, October 10, 2009.  Click the player above to hear Adam Curry’s and John C. Dvorak’s comments.

A phenomenon that his hit the press release world is the myth of the online press release as a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) vehicle. Reaching the media appears to be an afterthought. The goal of the online press release … well, no one agrees what is the goal of the press release, but SEO plays a part. (Read more…)

Over the past few years, the trend has moved from newsletters to blogs to Twitter. It’s hard for companies to stay on top of what they’re supposed to be doing. If you open a business magazine or visit any marketing website, you will experience “social marketing guilt.” Everyone seems to be hyping the next big thing you should be doing. Trade publications show your competitors tweeting or having thousands of “friends” on Facebook. (Read more…)

I’ve been with email newsletter publisher iContact since December using the same list of approximately 12,000 subscribers. Well, a recent newsletter triggered some AOL unsubscribes in which AOL users find it easier to flag as spam than go through the effort to find an unsubscribe link. (Read more…)

If you’re not archiving press releases on your company’s website, you might be missing out on valuable press coverage. Reporters increasingly rely on the Internet to conduct research on the issues and industries they cover. When they reach your site, it is important that they can quickly access information to include in an article in progress, or find ideas for a new one. (Read more…)

Another dip into the PR Fuel mailbag produced a slew of interesting questions from readers. This time around we decide if public relations departments should have a hand in corporate blogs, how to get attention for an online press room, and other queries from the world public relations. (Read more…)

The purpose of a personal blog is to provide a forum where its writer can complain, praise, and pontificate. A lone personal blog is one of perhaps millions out there, but like everything else out there on the internet, what’s written on even a personal blog has a sense of permanence. As anyone with a website knows, drawing traffic to a new property is a difficult proposition. Most people who read my personal blog seem to be one-time visitors. (Read more…)

A few years ago, Wired magazine editor-in-chief caused a ruckus when he announced he was banning public relations consultants from his email inbox. “I get more than 300 emails a day and my problem isn’t spam, it’s PR people,” Anderson wrote. “Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can’t be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they’re pitching.” And that was only the start of Anderson’s tirade against public relations professionals who keep sloppy, out-of-date lists of press contacts. (Read more…)

We see experts quoted in newspapers and magazines every day; journalists rely on third-party sources to offer unbiased opinions or to help sort through facts. The most inexperienced journalist can follow a formula and write a story about, say, computer viruses. However, without an expert to validate the subject, the story will ring hollow. Public relations consultants can help position clients as experts through an “expert pitch.” All it takes is a simple email. (Read more…)