A GUIDE TO PUBLIC RELATIONS

What is public relations?

Public relations is a group of activities aimed at influencing people's attitudes about your community or attraction with the ultimate goal of getting them to vacation there.

Public relations is one "tool" in the marketing toolbox that you can use to promote yourself as a vacation destination. Advertising is another marketing tool, perhaps the best known one. A key difference between the two is that advertising is paying the media to run your message and public relations is providing your unpaid message to the media without control over it and how they run it. You must rely on the creativity and value of the information you are presenting to get the media to carry your message to the public. Successful public relations creates an extremely credible third-party endorsement.

In this section of the workbook, we'll review tips and techniques for successful public relations, including how to write a good news release, how to "pitch" information about your community or attraction to the media, and how to develop and maintain relationships with reporters. We'll also cover how to develop a public relations plan and how to use public relations in the management of a crisis or specific issue. .

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Traditional PR Still Remains Strong

Even in the wake of online media, some fundamentals hold fast.

by Steve Simon
SSPR Public Relations

About a year ago, numerous blogs were discussing the ostensible "death" of traditional PR. The dialogue centered on the idea that the competition and pressure of online media technology, like blogs, pod casts and RSS feeds, was slowly rendering this kind of PR obsolete.

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Seven Great PR Tips for Winning Press Coverage

by: Robert Deigh

Reporters are always looking for compelling stories. You can help them and, at the same time, win press coverage for your products, services, organization or cause. Every organization, including yours, has newsworthy information. Sometimes you just have to dig a bit to get to it. Here are seven suggestions that will help you find the stories within your organization that you can pitch to get positive press attention and boost your public relations:

1) Identify trends in your industry - use your organization/product/issue as an example of a trend -- and pitch them as story ideas to the magazines, newsletters and Web sites your customers and prospects read.

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How well do you know your buyer personas?

If you've read my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR or spent time on my blog, you may recall that I stress the importance of "buyer personas." In fact, I believe they're one of the most fundamental aspects of great marketing. A buyer persona is distinct group potential customers, an archetypal person whom you want your marketing to reach.

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Selecting a PR Program

To determine the types of public relations programs that are right for your business, there are several considerations to keep in mind.

Your company’s goals and budget will determine which public relations programs most suited to your company. Do your homework first:

* Evaluate your business goals: Are you a local, regional, national, or international business?

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How to Gain Market Positioning

By Michele Connors

The key to gaining market positioning is through brand differentiation and increased exposure. In order to gain market position against your competitors, you must accomplish brand differentiation first. This will separate you from the competition and clearly define who you are in the eyes of your potential target market. Brand differentiation could be achieved through logo and design development, creative in-store visuals, customer perception (high end vs. mass market), pricing, target marketing demographics and selecting effective marketing vehicles.The second step, to increase brand exposure, should be taken only when brand differentiation is accomplished. Increasing your brand exposure is achieved by increasing your advertising, marketing and promotions schedule. This can include public relations.

Things You’ll Need:

* Corporate identity
* Marketing materials: in-store POP, printed collateral
* Print advertisement
* Press Release

How to Gain Market Positioning-Brand Differeniation

Step1

Research your competition's logo and design package. Does your design package stand out from the competition? Make sure the colors and style fit your brand's identity. The logo and design will be the face you put forth to potential customers, so make sure the tone and colors fit. For example, a casual restaurant should have a friendly font with primary colors versus a more fine dining restaurant with a more formal design aesthetic and scripted font and mature muted colors.

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The Rise and Rise of Article PR: What are the Implications?

Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

The Rise and Rise of Article PR: What are the Implications?
By Glenn Murray | SEO Copywriter (http://www.divinewrite.com)
& Article PR Specialist (http://www.articlepr.com) (c) 2006

Already a very popular method of achieving a high search engine
ranking, article PR (aka article submission) has now entered the
mainstream. As such, its popularity is increasing at a dramatic
rate. While this is great for SEO copywriters like myself, there
are some side-effects that need to be addressed if article PR is
going to remain a viable search engine ranking technique. This
article discusses some of those side-effects, along with how
they might be addressed.

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PR Tips For Startups: How To Get And Keep The Media Attention

by Alex

just an excerpt...read more here...

Hire a PR Firm

This may come as a surprise, but you do need a PR firm. An early stage startup can’t really afford one, but it does not mean that it is not necessary. The number one reason you need a PR firm is because of their connections. They know people, because this is what they do - network.

You do not really know people and if you hope that you will just email them and they will reply - it is a false hope. It is very tough to get people to answer cold emails these days. Going through a friend or a connection is always easier, it almost always works, but direct email almost never works. This is where having PR firm pays off, they come with a Rolodex (nowadays called LinkedIn). But there are, of course, a whole bunch of issues.

Weblogs: A curent trend in Public Relations

Public Relations as an industry has a long history of evolution , this industry has had to constantly reinvent itself to keep up with the fast changing times. In contemporary times where the world is at the threshold of a digital age, there have been massive changes in the way human beings communicate. The bounds of geography, culture and nationality no longer hold true and the world is turning into a global village. In this fast changing world , it is information and communication that hold the key to success. Organizations across every industry and geography recognize the importance of effective communications. Along with the traditional PR strongholds of analyst and media relations, disciplines such as internal communications are now becoming increasingly important as a core requisite for successful business operations. (Murphy, 2005, www.globalprblogweek.com) Public Relations is primarily concerned with establishing effective communication between organizations and individuals or companies and their audience.

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Public Relations: An Introduction (Paperback)

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Free On-Line Clipping Service Launched

March 24, 2008

Mind Bullet launches Free Daily On-line Political and Current Affairs Clippings

Mind Bullet Inc. (http://www.mindbullet.org/), the market positioning and public relations consulting group, has launched its political and current affairs monitor on-line at (http://www.newsmonitoring-mindbullet.blogspot.com/) . It is an internet based clipping service on major news and current affairs as seen in today’s on-line newspaper editions. It aims to help decision makers and business leaders make intelligent analysis of current events through a one stop navigation portal.

Newspapers scanned daily include the on-line editions of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Manila Times, Manila Bulletin, Daily Tribune, Malaya, Business Mirror, Business World, Abante, Abante Tonite, Pilipino Star Ngayon, and Philippine Journal.

Specialized and topic specific editions of the online-clipping services are currently being sent to selected clientele including the offices of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano (Graft and Corruption, Education Issues), Sen. Pia Cayetano (Health and Environment), Cong. Maria Laarni Cayetano (Education, Political) Cong. Teofisto TG Guingona III (Power and Electricity), Cong. Maria Evita Arago (Water, Political).

Eero Brillantes, Mind Bullet CEO, says that the on-line monitor serves many purposes. He says the foremost function is to make key judgments based on trend tracking and news analysis. Tracking also serves as early warning for potential political flashpoints or opportunities. Key staff of clients are likewise able to fast track their familiarization of policy issues by learning the policy and political environment and the different stakeholders involved.

The online monitor can be accessed through http://www.mindbullet.org/ and http://www.brainbang-mindbullet.blogspot.com/.

David Meerman Scott

The http://www.webiknow.com/ blog is the official blog of David Meerman Scott, an online marketing and public relations guru. I have read his book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR". Its a very practical book and is a goldmine of web sources about re-tooling marketing and public relations in an on-line environment. It is also incisive as it provides "in your face" analysis of emerging PR realities amidst time tested theoretical and traditonal banalities held sacred by practioners of the craft.

It is with this that two websites are put forward. http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/ and http://www.webinknow.com/

The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations & Integrated Communications

I've come across an online gold mine. Its entitled The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations & Integrated Communications.


As the media grows more ruthless, the role of public relations has become increasingly complex and critical. Savvy businesspeople know that how a company conveys and maintains its image has never been more important­­ or...Read More

I enjoin everyone to read on.

Market positioning and public relations strategy session for businesses

"One-day market positioning session" for business start-ups
Mind Bullet Inc., a market positioning and public relations (PR) firm in the Philippines, introduces its "one day strategy session" aimed at helping predominantly start-up enterprises and companies position themselves properly in the market.

At the launching of its website, www.mindbullet.org, Mind Bullet leverages market positioning as it applies to new business. President and CEO Eero Brillantes elaborates. 'What we have done is to concentrate on key market positioning subject areas appropriate for start up businesses. With some preparatory time, a session would last a day with a measurable market positioning program as output. After the session, we present our strategic recommendations. After that, it all nurturing time spread over the period a program is being implemented. "

Brillantes emphasizes the need for proper positioning as necessary to roll out new business.

"Now more than ever, market positioning is a major activity for any new business to succeed or even become dominant in a market. As a process, market positioning encompasses certain factors essential to roll out strategies and launches. Identifying real value, actually owning key words and phrases in the consumers mind, and establishing consumer relationships based on human interaction is what market positioning is all about".

Brillantes mentions that a lot of new businesses spend so much resources on capital outlay and tactical marketing campaigns only to be frustrated.

"How many times have we seen owners of businesses spend on equipment, expertise, and marketing gimmicks which do not give real value. It just so happens others have spent on these also. The same equipment is bought. The same media-marketing mix are employed. Similar corporate philosophies and business models are cascaded throughout the organization. But if you look closely, a lot of spending go to expenditures which do not anymore provide the competitive edge needed to succeed. Many factors of competition are already at parity. Yet this type of mistake is common. "

For his part, Nestor Mijares, Accounts Director at Mind Bullet says that nothing beats owning real estate in the mind of consumers.

"With so much information out there, and a galaxy of options for consumers, how do products and services stand out if these are new? Owning a word or phrase and relating this with what is offered is the most powerful outcome of any in market positioning strategy. Done properly, positioning makes a product, service, or individual stand out in the crowded market place and even at times dominate . Pushing the envelope further, proper positioning opens up new markets."

'New media shaking up public relations industry'

This is a very interesting article on blogs as direct to consumer communications. Turns out the Philippines is one of five Asia Pacific countries where blogging is a national phenomenon.

Saturday, September 15, 2007By Brian Asmus, Special to The China Post

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Len Apcar, chief editor of the New York Times, once intoned that, "Newspapers, in the traditional sense are dead. PR people have an opportunity to create content that will be delivered to consumers and embraced by the media." The South China Morning Post, in an editorial, chimed in that, "Blogs and sites like Wikipedia have become the thinking man's graffiti."
Tectonic shifts in how news is reported are forcing corporations and their public relations strategists to adapt. Central to this new focus is the role of advocacy, said Andrew Pirie, president Asia-Pacific, Weber Shandwick at an AmCham Marking and Distribution Committee breakfast held yesterday at Shangrila's Far Eastern Plaza Hotel in Taipei.
According to Pirie, 90 percent of consumers regard word of mouth as the best source of ideas and information about products and services. Today, 26 percent of Google search results on the world's 20 largest brands are coming from consumer-generated sources with 45 percent of consumers engaging in some form of advocacy activities and 54 percent saying they have more power to influence a company's success or failure as well as having a greater say in what is sold.
Advocates, pointed out Pirie to the gathering of corporate executives, are knowledgeable, connected and passionate, giving them colossal power to convince others. This spread of information is more than just word-of-mouth awareness; these advocates are making recommendations about everything from brands to issues. This is underlined by the fact that 63 percent of consumers are deciding more quickly to buy products and services, and to support or reject issues, causes and companies because of the influence of advocates.
This has impelled major changes in how public relations is conducted. In the 1980s, said Pirie, the industry was mostly about announcements, presentations and collateral; then moving into opinion, strategy and awareness in the 1990s before attaining new forms of influence in the first decade of this century, namely, engagement, experience and participation.
Corporations are spending great effort on determining how to best engage advocates to share their experiences, (hopefully positive) and get them to participate in the company's effort to get its message heard. Some of the reasons for the new power held by advocates, said Pirie, are the fact that fewer consumers trust established institutions such as government, corporations and traditional media channels. "They have put greater trust," he stressed, "in their peers and nongovernmental organizations."
Digitization of society has also led to networking among consumers with shared interests. "Ordinary citizens," he said, "have a powerful voice." This means that information and ideas can spread faster and farther than ever before.
To underscore just how networked people are these days, Pirie cited a number of figures on global Internet usage. Today, there are 1 billion global users online with 37 percent of these in the Asia-Pacific. In Asia, the top three countries for reading blogs are China, Korea and Malaysia with the top five for running a blog being China, Korea, the Philippines, Japan and Malaysia.
Pirie further observed that, in 2006, China had more than 160 million Internet users, 51 million regular users of bulletin boards and 35 million regular blog users. There are, he continued, as many as 100 companies trying to imitate Myspace with another 200 mimicking Youtube. "Sohu.com.cn, Mop.com, Wangyou.com and Baidu.com," he noted, "are all popular social networking sites with millions of Chinese users every day."
Anyone doubting the strength of these consumer sites can examine the spate of recent incidences in China, where well-known foreign companies have been forced to react to negative campaigns involving their corporations and products.
Blog -- and other advocacy -- activity sees consumers taking the lead in generating media. Internet search ability means that consumers can instantly connect with anyone who has an opinion. Distrust of corporate marketing means that consumers are demanding open, honest interaction and dialogue. "Brands must be seen to be human, honest and willing to engage directly with audiences," Pirie said.
The marketing model must, therefore, change. Rather than filtering news through the media, companies must now involve consumers in the journalistic process to fuel electronic word-of-mouth evangelism. Rather than control the dialogue, concluded Pirie, corporations and their public relations strategies must now settle for merely setting the terms of the debate, while enlisting multiple voices and utilizing an integrated approach.