Currently viewing the tag: "PR"

The Human Aspect of Social Media and Guidelines for Handling a Crisis

On April 18, 2013 By

Watching the aftermath of the Boston Marathon tragedy really hit home for me. Boston was  the place I called home for 11 years. I have family and close friends who live there. As a proud graduate of Boston University, I remember enjoying sunny afternoons on Patriots’ Day cheering on the valiant runners as [...]

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Happy Birthday, Twitter! 7 Ways Twitter Has Changed PR…

On March 22, 2013 By

Yesterday marked the 7th anniversary of the first tweet. For a service that was initially met with much skepticism (why does the world care that I’m eating a sandwich?), Twitter has steadily become a necessary PR tool, taking its place alongside (or in some industries, ahead of) the traditional [...]

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Is Social Media the New Fortune-Teller? Predicting Oscar Winners Based on Social Media Sentiment

On February 26, 2013 By

Look no further than social media to predict the winners of award shows – not to mention box office grosses, outcomes of sporting events, and more. For every uninformed social media user, there are many more experts weighing in on events and topics in social media, coming together to offer sound insights [...]

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The Rise of Churnalism – Distinguishing between News and Fluff

On February 20, 2013 By

We all know that the journalism industry is amidst great change. Shrinking budgets, smaller workforces, and the 24-hour news cycle of a 2.0 world all add up to a higher pressure to deliver more with less.

While more content is created for our consumption, these circumstances can lead to shortcuts [...]

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Beyond the Five Ws

On February 7, 2013 By

My career in the newspaper business began like that of any other cub reporter, with the requisite no-nonsense editor who drilled into me the importance of the facts –just the facts – derived from a simple but powerful set of questions known as the five Ws. You’re familiar with them, I’m sure, [...]

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2013 Predictions

On January 16, 2013 By

Last week, the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA), a Sterling client, hosted their annual “Predictions” event – bringing together some of the brightest minds in the Seattle tech industry to get their take on what trends and events defined the previous year — and what will be big in the coming [...]

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2012′s Most Notorious Events

On January 3, 2013 By

Happy New Year! As we head into what will inevitably be an exciting 2013, it’s interesting to sit back and reflect on some of the most notorious events of 2012 that caught our attention, and the lessons we’ve learned from each…

In January, just in time for Martin Luther King Day, many visitors to the [...]

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Working smarter for the New Year

On December 20, 2012 By

As 2013 approaches, many of us find ourselves resolving to do things that better our lives – exercise regularly; eat only locally grown and seasonal veggies; get outdoors more; find our inner Zen – and of course, the age-old improve professional development.

In line with this last resolution, the phrase, “work smarter, [...]

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When is public relations more than PR?

On December 19, 2012 By

Public relations has been at the heart of Sterling Communications since our founding in 1989. Relating to the public, in case it hasn’t become obvious this decade, requires far more than mere “PR.”

Public relations — at least to our high-tech and cleantech clients — has grown far beyond press releases about new products, [...]

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Will Redbox streaming spell the end for Netflix?

On December 12, 2012 By

We’ve written about Netflix a few times on this blog. Beginning in July 2011 with their poor execution in communicating a major pricing structure change, it seems this former media darling has been on a downward spiral in the news ever since. And their stock performance [...]

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Storytelling’s long goodbye

On December 6, 2012 By

There’s a lot to be said in favor of the rise of new media and the democratization of journalism. We get our news from more sources, with a greater variety of perspectives, than ever before. We get it faster, if not always more accurately, than we [...]

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Honest Review or Link Bait?

On November 15, 2012 By

A very snarky and entertaining restaurant review made the rounds yesterday. It was composed entirely of questions for the restaurant owner, and contained gems like the following:

“Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex?”

“And [...]

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12 Media Training Tips to Master the Art of the Interview

On November 13, 2012 By

Last month, I offered some insight on crisis communications and the importance for organizations to have a plan in place to control and effectively respond to a crisis as quickly as possible. Seems only fitting that this month I discuss the value of media training since the two go hand-in-hand. [...]

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The Silence of the Cougars

On November 1, 2012 By

Last week, Washington State University football coach Mike Leach publicly banned his players from using Twitter. When asked what prompted the decision, the notoriously blunt coach’s reply was, “Because I decided to, that’s what prompted that.”

Now, as a WSU alumna and die-hard Cougar football fan, far be it [...]

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Just Don’t Do It — Defending Your Brand in a Crisis

On October 18, 2012 By

Amid recent doping scandals and controversy, Nike has recently decided to drop US cyclist Lance Armstrong from its list of celebrity athlete endorsements. Nike stood behind Armstrong over years of allegations surrounding his use of performance enhancing drugs, but after the US Anti-Doping Agency released detailed reports of the charges against him, [...]

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Differentiating Your Product in a Crowded Market

On October 12, 2012 By

This week, Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper and formerly cofounder of Tumblr, launched a new publication for iOS called, The Magazine. Arment aims to cover technology, so I downloaded the pub to check it out (note: The Magazine and Arment are not clients) and was quickly [...]

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PR Challenges Old and New

On October 5, 2012 By

From time to time, I like to do some soul-searching on my career and profession to date, in which I consider my current role, and how it has evolved since I jumped into the business in the late 90s — has it ALREADY been THAT long??

I guess I should preface this with the following: [...]

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10 Tips for Effective Crisis Management

On October 2, 2012 By

You can never be too prepared when it comes to crisis management. Now more than ever, it’s important for organizations to have a communication plan in place to control and effectively respond to a crisis or potential crisis situation as quickly as possible. You only have to look at the recent Continue Reading →

Google Algorithms and Online Reputation Management

On September 28, 2012 By

Google’s autocomplete feature has long been a source of convenience – and sometimes shock and amusement. On the practical side, it’s so easy to just type in a couple words or even a few letters and select the result that matches your query. After all, if you’re looking for an answer to [...]

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Communicating a Pricing Change… the Right Way

On September 24, 2012 By

Last July, my colleague, Scott, wrote about the Netflix debacle with their unexpected pricing change and the brouhaha that ensued.

Netflix’s 60-percent pricing increase on their DVD streaming service left customers feeling confused and betrayed, resulting in hundreds of thousands more subscribers jumping ship than the company originally [...]

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Event Logistics: Managing the Unexpected

On September 18, 2012 By

Editor’s note: the following post is an example of the logistical challenges of managing a large scale event and is not a political endorsement.

Bringing a carefully planned event together, large or small, public or private, involves a number of challenges, and a great deal of patience.  However, when things change at the last minute, [...]

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10 On-Camera Interviewing Tips

On September 11, 2012 By

On-camera interviews can be nerve-wracking for even the most seasoned spokesperson. In addition to speaking to your audience and staying on message (which Sterling’s Dave Gifford addressed in his last blog post), on-camera interviewees must also be mindful of nonverbal communication, appearance and posture among other things. Following are 10 tips [...]

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People – The Forgotten Element of Technology

On August 30, 2012 By

“People are the forgotten element of technology.” – Ina Fried

At Tuesday’s PRSA In The Newsroom: AllThingsD event hosted at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, mobile reporter Ina Fried reminded us PR folk in the audience that people are still the most important, and overlooked, aspect of the technological bubble that [...]

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Growing Twitter Follower Numbers The Right Way: Focus on Quality vs. Quantity

On August 29, 2012 By

I like the phrase “growing your Twitter followers,” because it gives me a mental image of a social-media farmer cultivating a new crop of followers — carefully watering and fertilizing them with the right amount of content and engagement. Admittedly, this image is silly, and probably created by too much caffeine and [...]

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Living Up to Minority Report’s Technology 10 Years Later

On August 23, 2012 By

“We thought 2000 was gonna be like ‘The Jetsons’ – It ain’t even ‘The Jeffersons.’”

While comedian Chris Rock –who told that joke over a decade ago– is still right today with flying cars and living in space not realities yet, one movie’s future technology that seemed largely impossible [...]

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Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

On August 21, 2012 By

Some companies really don’t get that we live in a connected digital age where a single customer’s voice can do substantive long-term damage to your brand. Last week’s social media fireball around Kaitlynn Fisher’s court case made it painfully apparent that Progressive Insurance is anything but. In [...]

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Your Personal Data – As Transparent as a Cloud

On August 10, 2012 By

It seems like everywhere we turn, someone, somewhere, is getting hacked. Never mind the entire LinkedIn password debacle that occurred long enough ago that it’s fallen off the world’s collective e-memory, usurped by the latest and hottest hacking. Yahoo, eHarmony, Continue Reading →

Olympic-Sized Media Gaffes Part II: How to be a Good Spokesperson

On August 9, 2012 By

Amidst unparalleled worldwide media attention, some of the athletes of the London 2012 Olympic games have been sending misguided Tweets, giving awkward interviews, and appearing on camera totally unprepared. These gold-medal media gaffes have proven that while some people are natural-born athletes, few are natural-born spokespeople.

Last week we took a look at some of [...]

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What is Integrated Marketing?

On June 29, 2012 By

As if there weren’t already enough ambiguity in our line of work (seriously, how many times have friends or family members asked you, “so, what do you do, exactly?”), PR has evolved so much over recent years that PR professionals themselves are hotly debating what exactly defines this profession nowadays.

While our job [...]

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10 Tips for Perfecting PR Pitches

On June 20, 2012 By

Pitches are an integral part of PR, yet a surprising number of professionals don’t know what makes a pitch successful. They are often left wondering why a particular journalist never takes a briefing. In search of the best pitching advice, I attended a few seminars on the topic and compiled a list of what media [...]

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