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PR One of The Most Stressful Jobs

January 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I could have told you that!

According to CareerCast, the role of a PR executive is the fifth most stressful career path, up from seventh in 2012.

“Public relations executives are masters of damage control, thus need to be able to think and act quickly under stress,” said CareerCast. “The profession lives in the public eye, and it’s also one of the professions attracting the most college students, which makes landing and keeping a good job that much more difficult.”

The site reported that the median salary for PR pros is $57,550.

Conversely, University professor tops the CareerCast.com Jobs Rated report of least stressful careers for 2013. The field’s high growth opportunities, low health risks and substantial pay provide a low-stress environment that’s the envy of many career professionals.

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What’s Up With Wikipedia for PR?

January 8, 2013 By 1 Comment

WikipediaWikipedia has an enormous impact on the perception of any company or individual, yet most PR people don’t have a Wikipedia strategy for clients. It’s somewhat understandable. Wikipedia is an enigma wrapped in an enigma, an endless frustration for PR professionals. When a client says “Write me a Wikipedia page” or “Fix my Wikipedia page” you have to say … well, it doesn’t quite work like that.

I last wrote about Wikipedia in 2009 for PRBlogNews – What is your Wikipedia strategy? Since then, Wikipedia has loosened up a bit. There are now identifiable editors. You can request a review of your Wikipedia page, and there are more readily acceptable solutions to correcting a bad Wikipedia page.

Why bother?  Wikipedia often comes up top in search results. It is the 6th largest site on the Internet for web traffic. An inaccurate or skewed Wikipedia page can undermine years of PR effort.

What not to do.  As a PR professional, or a member of a company, you cannot edit a Wikipedia page in which you have a vested interest even if it is grossly inaccurate. You will be slammed by roving bands of Wikipedia editors and the damage will take a long time to undo. Witness the recent comical case of author Philip Roth’s tussle with Wikipedia in which it was determined initially by Wikipedia that Roth was not a credible source to set the record straight on his own book.

What to do. Hire Influence Consulting : ) We integrate a Wikipedia strategy into the earliest stages of a PR program. We identify authorized editors who can assure that a Wikipedia insert is accurate and up-to-date. We create a Newsroom that serves as an excellent PR and SEO channel, and a single source for Wikipedia editors to pull reliable, published news on a company or individual. – Mark Rose

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The Future of PR 2013. Content Creation + Distribution = PR for Lasting Impact

January 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment

By Mark Rose, Partner, at Influence Consulting Group.

More and more, we place less and less bottom line value in traditional PR tactics, and a much greater emphasis on content creation and distribution for lasting PR impact.

Mark Rose, Partner, Influence Consulting GroupWe create content through press releases, commentary, analysis, important organizational events, and third-party endorsement through publicity. Then it gets pushed out through a distribution channel = blog or News Room (the mother ship), various social media outlets, and packaged for marketing.

An ancillary benefit is that the content leads to media interest and publicity. The point is that the content created has lasting value directly to the client, compounding as a digital asset, whether or not “the media” picks it up. Now, more than ever, we are the media.

We can demonstrate lasting PR value with a simple strategic matrix: content creation + distribution = PR for lasting impact.

Think of original content the way a typical, top-level news organization does. A single story from a Dow Jones reporter can go to print, online,  through social channels, and become a video story. That content can go across Dow Jones properties – MarketWatch, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, et al. Reporters Tweet their stories, it runs through the LinkedIn network, on and on, and it lives in virtual perpetuity as a Dow Jones digital asset..

PR pros have access to virtually every digital distribution channel that Rupert Murdoch does (excluding print).

This is a thrilling time to be in PR. We have access to unprecedented news development and distribution capabilities. Most of these distribution channels are open source, free and are limited only by our imagination and willingness to devote time and attention. Publicity is still an important component of any PR program but it is best served by creating News that is delivered to target audiences, no filter, and also offered to the media. Increasingly, they will take credible content and re-publish through their vast channels.  PR is becoming a much more varied, fluid and creative business these days, much like the media whose coverage we covet. – Mark Rose

Influence Consulting Group content creation + distribution = PR for lasting impact

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Creative Bra PR in London on Zero Budget

November 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Chillisauce, UK event management company, creates world's largest bra for "Wear It Pink Day" - raising awareness of the fight against breast cancer - auctions the bra on eBay to raise money for Breast Cancer Campaign“What can you do for no money?” was the challenge a high-powered venture capitalist (VC) shot at me after I pitched my business idea that required, I thought, $13 million to launch. He was testing me. How committed, driven and passionate was I about my idea. How creative could I get? I think of that line from the VC often when testing my ideas, or considering the aspirations of others. It’s easier to be creative with a lot of money. What can you do with just your imagination?

Chillisauce, a UK event management company, had a super-sized bra (a whopping 1222B), on its hands after they hoisted the world record bra on a building over the Thames in 2011 to raise awareness of the fight against breast cancer.  It’s officially the world’s largest bra, weighing the equivalent of 1,800 bras – big enough to cover a building and just smaller than two tennis courts.

This year Chillisauce auctioned the World Record Bra on eBay and raised £3601 for Breast Cancer Campaign. That’s thinking creatively, for zero budget. From Chillisauce:

As yet the new owner’s intentions are unclear. However what started life as the World’s Largest Bra could easily become a giant hammock, a catapult for firing yourself over the neighbour’s fence, a pop-up bra type building, the easiest tent to find at ‘Glasters’ or just the ultimate way to add character to a outside of a modern property.

PR needs more creativity. You don’t need a lot money to make a splash. It’s old but it’s relevant. The old IBM slogan: Think. Thanks to Rebecca Lee, press contact at Chillisauce, for sending this our way.

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Measuring the Unmeasurable in PR

November 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mark Rose, Partner, Influence Consulting GroupMeasuring the value of PR is a constant struggle.  Some clients still insist on the print advertising equivalent of media placements, a completely antiquated metric since most of the value of publicity is online. How do we measure the value of online publicity? I spent a week trying to figure it out with one client and came up empty. That’s why I was heartened to see Courtney Seiter’s post Why Social Media ROI Can’t Be Measured – And Why That’s OK

Some blog posts on PRBlogNews spike in traffic years after they were posted. Why? Something happens that makes the post timely and relevant again. There’s an anniversary of an event. Keywords trend and the post rises in search results. Each blog post, if done right, is a digital asset that compounds over time.

Blog posts, like online news stories, are picked up by Google alerts and are fed into uncountable in boxes.

There’s a cumulative effect to online publicity and blog posts that defy measurement. Quality content that’s delivered in a search-friendly way accumulates and is the foundation of online reputation.

Also, online publicity impacts Wikipedia, which needs verifiable online sources as the basis of its content. This may be the biggest benefit of online publicity, and the most difficult to quantify to clients.

In the Internet age, public relations requires a lot of labor-intensive work that doesn’t yield an immediate, obvious benefit. Convincing clients of the value of these activities remains a challenge.  As Seiter suggests, quantifying and measuring what we can is a good start (page views, click-throughs,Tweets, etc.). The rest involves education about the nature of online content, and a leap of faith about the value of online conversations. – Mark Rose

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