5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Launching a New PR Campaign

The success or failure of your new PR campaign hinges on asking the right questions before you take action. If you spring into action without taking the time to plan carefully, you’re not going to achieve the level of results you hope for. (Read more…)

8 Reasons Your Press Release Got Rejected Online

Online press release distribution has become an integral part of most PR campaigns. Thanks to the internet, you can now get your news spread faster than ever before. (Read more…)

Are PR Internships Worth it for Budding PR Pros?

When people think intern, they think of a life of glamour, mystery and intrigue. Just kidding. They think of fetching coffee for execs and peeking over the walls of cubicles trying to overhear vital career tips in between making copies and answering phones. But with research and perseverance, a public relations intern can capture some of that PR glamour, all the while making sure she wants to deal with her fair share of PR drudgery for the rest of her career, too. (Read more…)

3 Times When You Shouldn’t Write a Press Release

Here on the PR Fuel blog, we spend a lot of time offering tips for press release writing, covering everything from how to hook editors with strong openings to fact checking your press release. Today, I want to go in a little bit of a different direction. I want to talk about not writing press releases. More specifically, I want to discuss the situations when you shouldn’t write a press release because it’s a waste of your time. (Read more…)

4 Reasons PR Campaigns Fail

I’m a firm believer in studying the mistakes made by other PR campaigns so you can avoid making them yourself. Forget learning from your own mistakes. That’s too costly. The goal should be to let other people make the mistakes, you learn from them, and you never make mistakes at all. (Read more…)

PR and SEO: A Match Made in Heaven?

You may have recently heard the term Public Relations 2.0. If you haven’t, you’re probably shaking your head right now. In a nutshell, PR 2.0 is the process of using Web 2.0 methods like search engine optimization (SEO) as part of your company’s PR push. The connection is intuitive. PR pros want their product, company or cause to appear in as many places as possible. SEO experts want optimum placement on page one of search engine websites like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Both want this placement to attract attention. So how do PR pros apply the principles of SEO to online press releases? (Read more…)

The 4 Characteristics of an Effective PR Campaign

What makes some PR campaigns successful while others are flops? While there are a lot of variables in every PR campaign, I’ve come to realize that the most successful campaigns share 4 things in common. (Read more…)

Ask Mickie: Can a Press Release Save My Company?

Darby writes:

Times are tough. Money is more than tight. Can a press release save my company?

Mickie responds:

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. A single press release is unlikely to save your company. I can’t give you Vegas odds. They’re probably better than a state lottery, but reality is that a single press release is simply a start. (Read more…)

Catching Up with Jeremy Pepper and Blogs

Back in May 2003, I sat down – ok, instant-messaged – with Jeremy Pepper to talk about what it’s like to start your own PR firm. Pepper had just launched his own firm, POP! Public Relations, and was beginning to get settled.

Since our first interview, Pepper has been busy not just practicing PR, but writing about it. His Musings from POP! Public Relations weblog has become a leading online destination for people looking for insight into the PR industry, and Pepper has become an outspoken advocate for and critic of the industry. I caught up with Pepper this week and we spoke – ok, instant-messaged – about the challenges an independent PR practitioner faces, the role of weblogs in PR, good and bad PR campaigns, and a number of other issues. (Read more…)