Earned Media

The news media are the original influencers. Everybody knows the value of press coverage. It’s a great way to drive demand because it’s a neutral, third-party endorsement. And if the news media is reporting about your brand, it must be worth checking out. But if you don’t know how to write a press release, a…

The coronavirus pandemic will forever change how information workers collaborate. While we’re all working separately from home, our fate as a species has never been more connected. What’s the use of taking extreme measures and imposing a lock down to flatten the curve in one country if a neighboring country does nothing? There’s only one…

Startups used to hire a public relations firm with experience in their industry and relationships with reporters covering their trade. If you were a B2B tech company, you wanted to retain the services of a B2B tech PR firm. If you were in video games, you sought a video game PR agency. That’s still true…

Embryos are tiny and frail. Unfortunately, embryonic businesses get taken advantage of by consultants all too often. If you’re a start-up, an emerging thought leader, or a self-published author looking to hire a public relations agency to promote your company or yourself, I will share with you something that most people won’t. They won’t because…

This isn’t about what a public relations agency does, how they work, or what they look for in employees. No. This article is about what type of PR firm to look for when hiring a public relations agency to promote your organization. So, I won’t talk about RFPs, marketing budgets, chemistry, or KPIs. That’s going…

When your critics start calling you out on Twitter and Facebook and your social media monitoring tools start turning up all kinds of negative posts on Instagram and Pinterest, your first impulse might be to gather your key stakeholders and move into social media crisis communications mode. But before you assemble your communications team and…

I have been asked to moderate a Public Relations Society of America Webinar on The Future of the Press Release. So, I’m reaching out to the Social Media Club and the Society for New Communications Research to weigh in on the issues that matter most to PR firms. Whether or not you’re planning on attending,…

Information technologies have already revolutionized the way organizations communicate and the way people consume media and information. But Hollywood – which started pushing the digital envelope over a decade ago – has been slow to procure any of its major technological advancements. Today, for our client Rearden LLC, public relations agency of record Schwartzman &…

What is the best media placement you can possibly earn for your client? It’s not a cover story at nytimes.com, wsj.com, or CNN.com, even though they’re some of the most challenging earned media opportunities out there. It’s a Google Doodle. I’m not talking about paid media, mind you. By media placements, I mean earned media…

Eason Jordan’s resignation wasn’t so much a victory for online influencers as it was a reputation management failure. By failing to adapt the network’s media relations practices in a meaningful way to work for online influencers, CNN set him up. CNN’s and Eason Jordan’s mistake was trying to mandate conventional media relations tactics with digital…