Journalists always know the holidays are upon them when they begin to receive pitches geared towards holiday-themed gift guides and such. Every year the holiday season seems to extend itself, so if you work in the public relations industry it’s best to start circulating your holiday-related pitches early in order to get the jump on the competition. The following tips should help public relations pros make the most of the hectic months before the holidays finally arrive. (Read more…)

Whether you’re a pundit, an expert, an analyst, or a third party, it’s important to remember that you rarely know all the facts. The media does not care about this; they just want a quote and a public relations contact to attribute it to. The juicier the sound bites you offer, the better for journalists, but not necessarily for you. (Read more…)

Not every client or employee is equipped to deal with the media on an intimate level. When I was a journalist, public relations contacts would sometimes sit in on interviews I conducted with company executives. In most cases, the public relations department was there to lend support — as either a confidant, or a source of additional information. In other cases, however, it was clear that the executive needed his hand held because he could not handle on-the-fly questioning alone. But media training can help clients and company employees prepare for encounters from journalists and interviewers. (Read more…)

For public relations professionals, preserving a client’s privacy can be difficult when you’re also trying to cater to the needs of your press contacts. Recently, my employer changed its guidelines regarding how much access clients will have to our products. (Read more…)

One of the joys of writing PR Fuel is that it helps me think through my own public relations failings. By putting ideas down on paper — OK, a computer screen — I’ve helped improve my own public relations skills immensely. That’s part of why I’ve come up with a set of rules for dealing with reporters during phone interviews. Hopefully, I can follow them. (Read more…)

Once again it’s time to dip into the PR Fuel mailbag and answer some reader questions. This time around we look at how to climb the public relations ladder, corrections, unethical journalists, and more. (Read more…)

It took me a few months to figure out her modus operandi. For four years, she called me once a month. It was always on the last Friday of the month, and always before lunch. We would chat for a few minutes I would ask a few questions; she would skirt around the answers. She would pitch me a story or two; I would sigh and act disinterested. Maintaining relationships with journalists is critical to long-term success in public relations. The journalist/public relations relationship must be fostered with trust and then fueled with consistent communication. Here’s a case in point. (Read more…)

I recently celebrated my first decade working in the public relations industry, in one capacity or another. As I looked back on ten years in public relations, I realized I have many fond memories and plenty of regrets. I had some big successes, and some terrible failures. I got publicity in a newspaper read by more than one million people everyday, and a write-up in a high school newspaper read by a few hundred students and parents. More than anything, I realized that I’ve learned a heck of a lot about public relations in that decade. Here are just a few of the tips I’ve picked up after ten years in the belly of the beast. (Read more…)

It’s perhaps one of the longest running questions in public relations: How do you deal with a journalist who has an agenda? Some journalists do have agendas; columnists are paid to comment on the news and provide opinion, not just report the news. Even in traditional reporting, sometimes a personal agenda seeps into a story. Just as every public relations consultant has their own style, background, level of intelligence, gifts, resources, etc., so does every journalist. (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…)