10 Steps for Managing an Online Crisis

It used to be you'd hire a PR firm and have them write a crisis plan that was then put in the drawer and revisited once a year. An online crisis plan wasn't even considered.

Now? Now a crisis can erupt in mere seconds if someone has a bad experience with your organization.

3 Skills any PR Pro Needs

Excellent writing and communication skills, a passion for your brand, and thick skin are all musts when working in PR. As the industry evolves and becomes increasingly competitive, there are a few less-obvious skills that you should develop.

How to Manage your Social Media with Hootsuite

Managing your social media can be a difficult task. Using Hootsuite is one way of simplifying the process. 

Seven Deadly Sins of PR

We have come up with the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ of public relations! While you won’t be eternally damned by breaking one of these rules, they are key PR rules to follow.

What Do the Best Corporate Blogs Do Well?

Here are five companies that aren’t talked about quite as much when it comes to blogging–and how they’re pulling the right strings when it comes to corporate blogging.

10 Ways to use Social Media for Job Hunting

In today’s competitive job market it’s important to use every method possible when it comes to finding, applying for and then securing a new job.

7 Tips to Finding "Your" Writing Voice

Writing and creating from the “real” you is your voice. That can be daunting and exposing. Your internal conversations start the jabber….”What if I show a side of me that no one likes or thinks is stupid?”

Public Relations: Don’t Sell Past the Close

“Don’t sell past the close.”

When we — you or me — secure an agreement, that’s it, we’re done. If we keep talking, we might just talk someone out of the deal or out of a story. Move out and get started.

20 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Likes and Engagement

Growing your Facebook “likes” are social media’s version of building the traditional email subscribers list.

Facebook specialist Allfacebook.com states that for them Facebook fans are twice as effective as an email list. Their reasoning?…that email is now full of “spam” and 50% of all Facebook users log in every day.

A Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics

If your business relies on the Internet—whether for making sales, providing clients with information, or as a marketing tool—then Google Analytics is for you.

10 Content Ideas that Generate Comments and Shares

As I was trolling the web for a topic for today’s blog post, it occurred to me I haven’t covered many tips or tools lately.

I hereby commit to change that.

Therefore, today I have created a list of 10 types of content you can use for your blog. When you have writer’s block (cough, Lindsay Bell and Jason Konopinski, cough), you now have something to jog your brain.

20 Words and Phrases that will Doom your Pitch

Only communicators stand between civilization and a new Dark Age. But your quest starts with a taboo: Never write the 20 words that will bring down a curse on you, your communications and all mankind.

Who is the Universal PR Professional of Tomorrow?

A question posed by a webinar participant really stuck in my mind. She asked if there was a place to find a PR checklist of important skills. I use my eight new PR practices as a checklist of both skills and new responsibilities. However, if I were hiring a “Universal PR professional” to guide strategic communications in 2013 and beyond, here are some of my best practice tips to shape that PR person’s role:

What does it take to be a creative, female leader?

With the ninth Women in PR Forum only days away, we wanted to begin the discussion now and highlight some excellent insights into creative female leaders.

Here's a great article from Nicole Tattersall on what it takes to be a creative female leader.

30 PR Experts You Should Follow on Twitter

If you’re like me, you like to follow people on Twitter who provide valuable information you can use and learn from. Because this is a PR blog, I thought I’d share what I believe to be the 30 PR experts you should follow on Twitter. Now, I’m sure there are many more who deserve to be on this list, so please leave a comment with your favorites.

How to Create a Great Business Blog

Blogs can be a great addition to your business’ PR strategy because they can help you to communicate with your target audience, share your stories and engage with others.

Here are some of our tips for creating a great blog for your business.

How to Rock Social Media in just 30 Minutes a Day

Social media has become an invaluable marketing and communications asset for many organisations over the last few years but it also represents yet another task for marketers and business owners to cram into their already busy schedule. And there are now quite a few social networks that can’t be ignored, so it can been seen as quite a burden.

Five PR Lessons from The Voice

Why are so many of us addicted to “The Voice”? For me, it’s not because I am constantly reminded of what a poor singer I am.  I have my kids to remind me of that. Why I like “The Voice” over other reality shows has more to do with the mix of great singers, charismatic judges and weekly lessons in finding something nice to say over and over to countless strangers.

New Grads: Five Tips for Success in PR and Marketing

The competition is fierce. The economy is just now beginning to turn. You have to stand heads and shoulders taller than your peers to even get an interview.

Here are five tips to help new grads land their dream job.

2013 Trends in Digital Communication

Trends in digital communication change more often than London's weather (snowfall in April, in case you were wondering). My recent conversations with leading thinkers in communication and the social/digital workplace while producing Melcrum's Digital Communication Summit 2013 (taking place in the aforementioned city of fickle weather), have highlighted this very fact. So, here's my take on what's hotting up, and what's melting away in digital communication right now. I've also shared some anonymous quotes from those conversations. Do you think these ideas will stick? What would you add? As always, we're keen to hear your thoughts.  

The Gap Between Social Media and Business Impact

In business, social media is becoming a lot like email. Every company has it. In an Altimeter Group survey of 700 executives and social strategists fielded in late 2012, we found that 100 percent of participating enterprise organizations run to varying extents an active social media strategy. But unlike email, organizations haven’t mastered how to effectively communicate through the likes of Facebook or the tweets of Twitter.

15 Top Tips for a Successful PR Career

One of the things I enjoy most nowadays is having the opportunity to speak to the future leaders of the PR profession when they’re starting out. One of the questions I often get asked is “what tips would you offer to get ahead in this field?”

5 Tips to Follow when Writing Press Releases

As social channels grow it may be easy for PR pros to lull themselves into thinking that that press release has lost its luster.

Yet despite the ongoing proliferation in digital-media channels, press releases have not gone out of style.

Three secrets behind using thought leadership op-eds in the media

The benefits of thought leadership manifested as opinion pieces published in the media include that it is opinion and not news reporting (so the necessity for factual accuracy is not a focus); it gives the writer greater control over how their thoughts are represented; it provides an increasingly resource-challenged media with valuable content; and its generally exclusive offering helps foster an enhanced relationship with a strategically valuable media outlet.

6 Tips for using Images on Social Media

On social media pages, your profile pictures and cover photos are the first things most users will notice, so making a good impression is essential if you want to increase your customer base.

Three PR Lessons from Social Customer Care

Social media is putting customer care teams on the frontline of public relations. How can PR teams prepare for incidents in this new environment? Matt Travers over at ServiceRage.com has some ideas.

10 Practical and Creative Tips to Help you Find your Next Job

Finding an employment is a bit like money — it takes employment to find employment.

There’s a theory in PR employment that I’ve observed on both sides of the table as both a job seeker, and a hiring manger:  the good PR people already have jobs.  To find talent, employers have to poach from existing employers.

2 More Reasons Your Brand Should Be on Vine

Still not sold on Vine, the six-second video montage service that's owned by Twitter? Even the U.S. Government is climbing aboard. Friendly terms of service were signed by the General Services Administration and Twitter last week cleared the way for U.S. agencies to post six-second Vine videos without fear of violating any rules, according to Mashable. 

The Importance of Creativity in your Blog Content

The only thing boring about content may well be the creator.

That was the message in a post on Copyblogger with a subtitle that read, “There are no boring topics, only boring content creators.” Author Pratik Dholakiya next tackles the challenge of making coffee cups interesting.

6 Things to Consider Before Starting a PR Agency

Sole traders in the PR Industry are popping up all over the place, practically every day. While I 100% whole-heartedly support entrepreneurial endeavour, there are many things to consider before taking the leap into PR biz world.

10 Ways to Become a Better PR Writer

If you’re a PR pro then you probably pride yourself on being a good writer. But being a good writer is not the same thing as being a great PR writer who knows how to edge out the competition and connect with journalists, bloggers and consumers across all channels, including social media.

6 Creative PR Ideas Used Across Paid, Shared & Earned Media

Below are six creative PR ideas, and the one aspect I’d like to highlight, is that almost all of these incorporate a blend of media.  Even as the distinction between marketing and PR has grown blurry, so too has the distinction between paid and earned media.

How to Write a Convincing Email

E-mails are the most common document in the business world. Unfortunately, many e-mails are so poorly written that recipients must struggle to figure out why they're reading the e-mail and what they're supposed to do about it.

Here's a foolproof method to write e-mails that get the job done.

Guest Post: You Snooze You Lose

It often surprises the team at Recognition PR how frequently we line up a media interview, or the opportunity to write a by-lined article, only to have the spokespeople query the deadline and ask for extensions. Why, they wonder, does it need to be so soon?

Work Fresher Rather Than Longer

The culture of working to excess has fallen out of favour with many employers. The new theory is that people increase productivity by working fresher rather than longer.

Five Essential Technical SEO Tips For PR Pros

PR professionals are well aware of the importance of links earned in their coverage, right?  In an SEO’s world, a link from one site to the next is seen as a vote of confidence by search engines, and it’s the basis for Google’s Page Rank Algorithm.   As PR Pro’s, you value a link as a pipeline for referral traffic and possibly additional coverage and even sales.  What I’d like to do, is present a few ways that PR pros can help the SEO’s on your team, and in turn, help yourselves. 

ANZ Joins the 2013 Women in PR Forum!

PRIA is delighted to announce ANZ as the major partner for the 2013 Women in PR Forum.

ANZ is one of the top 4 banks in Australia and operates in 32 markets globally. Throughout an 177-year history, ANZ is committed to building lasting partnerships with customers, shareholders and communities around the world.

The Women in PR Forum will take place over lunch on Friday, 3 May 2013 in the Melbourne Room at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Top 9 LinkedIn Profiles for the Digital Industry

Professional networking website, LinkedIn, has just released their most viewed profiles within the Australian internet industry.

An astounding 80 percent of the country’s five million working professionals are on LinkedIn.

According to LinkedIn, senior executives and entrepreneurs are leveraging the LinkedIn platform to boost their professional brand.

Challenge for Marketing and PR: Restore Trust in Aus' Institutions

The Australian public's trust in the country's institutions  - NGOs, business and government - continues to fall, according to the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer research study.

What does this mean for companies and organisations? 

9 Ways That PR Pros Can Capitalize on Infographics

Karl Gude, editor-in-residence, Michigan State University School of Journalism, is a fan of showing, not telling. Gude, who was the director of information graphics at Newsweek for 10 years, says that at their best, infographics can provide a structure for organizing, planning and studying information and revealing hidden relationships. At their worst, they are link bait.

How Mobile is Changing Business (and how you should be responding)

Due to the speed with which technological progress is being made, today people access vast amounts of data and make online purchases using devices like the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy SIII and LG Optimus L9. Business owners now face two challenging questions: How are these advances changing the business-consumer relationship? And, how should my business react to these shifts?

The Biggest PR Trends from the 2013 SXSW

Although SXSW runs through this weekend in Austin, Texas, scores of PR professionals have started to bolt after checking out the latest news and trends in technology, media and music—and, of course, have some fun while doing it—during the SXSW interactive sessions that took place this week.  

In the last few years the festival has helped to put some now-household names on the map. For example, SXSW was the site of Foursquare’s launch in 2009 and it was also where Twitter achieved a tremendous boost of popularity back in 2007.

Melissa Todisco, VP at Hunter PR, provided us with some boots-on-the-ground coverage from this year’s gathering in the Lone Star State:

6 Tips to Writing a Killer Synopsis

As a PR professional, you’re probably called upon to write or edit synopses from time to time. Whether it’s for a book, a movie, a play, a TV show or even a magazine article, boiling down a lengthy work into a paragraph or two can be a daunting task. The goal, of course, is to tell readers enough about the work to make them want to experience it for themselves—without giving away so much that they feel like they don’t need to.

What Does A Large Number Of Facebook Page Fans Mean For Your Business?

When your Facebook Page reaches a major milestone, whether it be 500, 5,000 or 5 million Likes or some other metric, it is a good time to reflect and ask yourself “what does that mean for my business?” Obviously that answer will vary based on each business, but here are some things to consider:

The Secret to Business Success: No Back-Up Plan

I’d like to say that when I launched Eclipse, I had a solid plan and steadily climbed the ladder of success. But most of you know me better than that. We broke a lot of the rules that the local SBA would have shared  if we’d spent more time there.

I’m not advocating rule-breaking—anyone who mucks with proper grammar or punctuation knows that—but sometimes the rules get in your way. So here’s Eclipse’s spin on some rules for starting a business.

8 Questions Every Brand Should Be Able To Answer

How does your message differ from your competitors? What motivates your customers? If you can't answer these questions, your brand is in danger.

Is Multitasking Damaging Your Productivity?

If a survey of marketing and advertising executives by The Creative Group is to be believed, multitasking is great. More than half of the 500 executives surveyed said the practice somewhat or greatly improves productivity. Only about 16 percent said it hindered it.

Common Sense Principles of PR

Excellent public relations is nothing more than the application of common sense, creativity and kindness, with the latter characteristic relevant both to those an organisation is seeking to have a positive relationship with, as well as those people a PR professional interacts with and/or utlislies to help achieve the best possible result.

Are You Passionate about PR with 1 -5 Years of Experience?

The New and Emerging Practitioners Group (NEPG) is a specialist PRIA group and we’re focused on supporting PR professionals in the early stages of their career by providing opportunities to connect with our industry, learn from others and get the most out of our chosen profession.

Guest Post: How Social Media is Merging Customer Care and PR

The public nature of social media means that routine customer care can rapidly and seamlessly spiral into crisis management. Major outages at NAB on February 8 and Westpac on February 25 illustrated the challenges faced by customer care and PR teams as their roles increasingly overlap. Our analysis found three key customer behaviours that are changing the game.

5 PR Tips to Help Your Small Business Thrive

Few things can be labeled “easy” when it comes to growing a small business. Managing the day-to-day business operation, training employees, overseeing finances and keeping customers or clients happy doesn’t leave small business owners with much time to think about promoting their company’s own good works. But why then, do I continue to make the case that small businesses must consider public relations as an indispensible element of their business strategy?

How to Write Faster and Freer: Misspell More

Spell words incorrectly. Why? So you don’t cause the wheels of your thought train to come to a screeching halt every time you’re facing a dilema, dilemna or dilemma. If you stop to figure it out, you’ll slow down and stifle your writing at the same time.

Video: Why and How You'll Be Using It in 2013

Online retailers to major news outlets have seen the light: online video. In its recently announced reshuffling of top editors, the New York Times appointed a managing editor just for the development of video—that's how important video is to its online presence.

The Unique Benefits of Each Social Platform

When managing multiple social media accounts, it's important to understand that not all platforms were created equal. Each platform (though there are some similarities) functions independently with its own unique qualities. As a result, social media managers must treat each platform as such. Let's take a closer look at the best ways to integrate the most popular social networks that businesses use today.

Guest Post: There's no Truth without Trust

Richard Edelman said at the 2012 WPRF, “Public Relations is the truth well told.” We all have our own moral compasses and, perhaps you don’t like to admit it, your job as a communications professional is to deliver the truth according to who is paying you. IN order to deliver that truth you must develop a level of trust with the people you are communicating with so they’ll deliver your truth.

Five Tips for Better Speeches

I’ve written more speeches than I can remember. I’ve trawled countless books, attended courses and conferences and have gleaned a host of tips and techniques. Here are some of them:

Using LinkedIn for Strategic Communication

The capability of LinkedIn to be an effective platform for strategic communication is both constrained and advanced by its unique properties. Make no mistake, however. When operating in a B2B and/or services-oriented environment, organisations can leverage LinkedIn via a number of potent means – e.g. market research, differentiation, positioning, viral marketing – to deliver business results.

5 Ways To Get Your New Client To “Fall in Love” With You

The first month in a new work engagement is a once-in-a-lifetime period when you have the chance to cement your firm as that amazing, irreplaceable partner your client can’t live without.

So how do you do it? How can you make your client fall desperately, madly “in love” with your agency?

Melbourne Media’s Night of Nights

The Melbourne Press Club says PRIA members are welcome at the Victorian media’s night of nights, the annual Quill Awards for Excellence in Victorian Journalism at Crown Palladium on March 15.

Be a Copycat on Social Media

There are plenty of companies who are showing incredible leadership when it comes to social media. If you want to have a look at who’s doing it best, try these organisations and brands for some inspiration for your own social media campaigns.

5 Types of Killer Social Media Content

Have you ever thought why some businesses experienced tremendous success on their social media strategies? All it takes is creating great content that makes people crazy to share it with their friends. There is no magic formula but hard and consistent work. Think yourself as a standalone newspaper that needs to find or create content that everyone wants to SHARE.

The 5 biggest social media mistakes brands make

Social media has evolved a lot in the last couple of years, yet there are still a lot of misconceptions out there. Here are some of the biggest mistakes many of us may be making:

5 easy ways to get more Twitter followers

There’s no winning formula for growing your number of Twitter followers – there are multiple, equally valid approaches - but if you follow these five simple steps, you’ll be on the right track for social media success.

How to Be the Real You in Your Blog Writing

Having a platform that lets you communicate your personal brand is a rare gift. So go for it when you write your blog: Tell us what you think.

Say it in plain English. And celebrate who you are.

1 Thing Every Business Executive Must Understand About Social Media

Social media is still in its infancy, and many business executives still don't understand how to Ieverage it for their organizations, large or small. They're too focused on the talking, and not focused enough on the listening.

Social Media Matters: Why Your Brand Should Join the Conversation

One of the reasons that social media is so important is because people in the world at large are using social media platforms to talk about the things that they do every day, the brands that they interact with, and the businesses they encounter with on a daily basis. And if you are not there, if you are not part of the conversation, then you can’t contribute to the conversation, and you certainly can’t control the conversation.

Public Relations and Public Diplomacy: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Guest Post: Not only are there a lot of similarities between Public Relations (PR) and Public Diplomacy (PD) but were it not for one major element, they might be identical. Scholars have argued that issues of power have been neglected in PR. This is true. However, that might not illustrate the complete, picture as the main difference is perhaps the cohesion of PD, and the power it can achieve thanks to this. No wonder the Ancient Romans divided their legions into cohorts, for through cohesion, the Roman legionary ‘was adaptable at any place, at any time, for any purpose.’ – Polybius, Ancient Greek Historian.

7 Ways to Bounce Back from Career Mistakes & Misunderstandings

The truth is, we all face difficult situations at work but not everyone knows how to handle them. Often people let mistakes and crises cripple — even paralyze — them, but bouncing back from roadblocks in your career is not as daunting as you might think. I really believe that every crisis is an opportunity; most errors are reversible, so it’s important to remember that how you respond in tough times shows who you are as a person as much, if not more, than how you are in good times.

PRIA National President's Thoughts on the Future of PR

Terri-Helen Gaynor, National President, gave the opening address to the recent PRIA Summer School and spoke about the future of Public Relations. Amongst other reflections and anecdotes, Terri-Helen recounted a conversation with Dan Edelman:

7 Habits of Highly Successful (PR) People

The seven habits are applicable to anyone, and for public relations professionals, they are particularly helpful in our work with journalists, clients and the public. Here are ways you can apply Covey’s proven 7 Habits to your PR work.

Guest Post: Top 3 SEO Tips for the 3 Top Social Media Networks

Guest Post:The increasing impact of social media on search rankings has led a mad rush of activity in both social media and SEO. But how successful have your attempts been at maximizing the impact of social media for search rankings?

Here are some practical strategies to help you unleash the full SEO potential of the top 3 social media platforms.

Infographics: the answer to information overload?

Infographics – they’ve been called the language of the internet, visual essays or data visualisations, and they’re spreading rapidly. Thanks to information overload and the advent of digital and mobile technology, more and more readers these days ‘skim the surface’ rather than dive into narrative. Writers and designers are being challenged to cut down on unwieldy text and use their skills to tell visual stories that are easily and quickly understood.

Can Anyone Read the Writing on Your Blog?

I make my living as a freelance copywriter, which is why many people won’t play “Word With Friends” with me.

They figure I must know dozens of long and esoteric words. But I believe my success depends on my limited vocabulary of words more than six characters or three syllables.

Why? Because keeping it short and simple makes writing more understandable, whether it’s a blog, an ad or an article. I’m not trying to impress my readers—I’m trying to inform, persuade and entertain them. And the way to do that is to write so that they can quickly grasp the message.

A Facebook cheat sheet for brands

Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of Facebook engagement, but a recently published infographic could help unlock some of the mysteries.

5 things scuba diving teaches me about PR

We can see parallels in nearly anything. Sometimes analogies work; other times they don’t. It depends on perspective – and experiences.

13 for ’13: A Baker’s Dozen of PR To-Do’s

Now that your personal New Year’s Resolutions are sealed, it’s time to think about what sort of impact you plan to make this year for your company, your stakeholders and, just as importantly, for yourself. To help, I’ve compiled 13 action items, in the hope that a few of these will resonate with you. I recently read that it takes 66 days for a habit to form to the point it becomes subconscious, so when you try these ideas below, give it until mid-March to assess if you’ve been successful. That’s assuming you’ll start on this list now….

How to use design to engage readers

Good graphic design can complement great writing to engage readers and deliver more effective company communications. Indeed the two in combination can produce a result far stronger than you’d get from text alone.

Here are nine steps to help you produce designs that will draw and engage readers:

12 most fabulous ways to make your Facebook cover photo pop

Are you ready to market your business with an imaginative and original Facebook cover photo? Need some inspiration to make it happen?

Rev up your creative juices with these 12 fabulous ways to make your Facebook cover photo pop.

2013 Training Update

The PRIA 2013 Training Calendar provides a greater variety of training than ever before in all states and territories, and it’s much more affordable. Early-bird prices now apply to members, RCG staff and non-members, a reduction of 20%. These discounts revert to full price at the four weeks from the published date, so it pays to get in early. An interstate travel allowance of $200.00 is also applicable to full-day workshops not scheduled in the state of residence.

Guest Post: 5 Twitter Crimes You Could Be Guilty Of

Guest Post: Out of all the social networks you use, none is more public, easily accessed, or random than Twitter. Whether you use it to market your blog, your website, your company, or just yourself, there's no doubt that this platform is one of the most effective.

But despite its simple premise, which is becoming a member and starting to tweet, you can still commit a lot of mistakes and end up losing the benefits that you should be reaping from this social media optimisation tool.

Buried Treasure: How to Find Great Content Right Under Your Nose

PR people—whether in-house or external—often excel at creating content. Their daily work can yield a ton of information for blogs, social media posts, email alerts, newsletters, etc. So I'm often surprised to hear marketing managers describe what their PR people do—but not mention them as content resources.

Seven Top Tips for Healthcare PR

Like every speciality, healthcare PR has its own little quirks. You can bet that behind every "breakthrough" story on the TV news and every heart wrenching "miracle cure" in the Sunday Telegraph is a health-focused PR consultant who knows how it works.

Australian Community-Based Social Marketing Workshops

The cornerstone of sustainability is behaviour change. If we are to move toward a sustainable future we must encourage individuals and businesses to engage in a multitude of actions (e.g., waste reduction, water and energy efficiency, pollution prevention, etc.). To date, most programs to encourage such activities have relied upon disseminating information. Research demonstrates, however, that simply providing information has little or no effect on what people or businesses do. But if not ads, brochures or booklets, then what? Over the last decade a new approach—community–based social marketing—has emerged as an effective alternative for delivering programs to foster sustainable behaviour.

The PRIA announces it has appointed an interim CEO

The PRIA is pleased to announce that Catriona Barry has been appointed as Interim CEO from 7 January 2013. Catriona comes to PRIA with a wealth of governance knowledge, strategic and business planning attributes, financial management, strong leadership skills, and change management experience. Catriona, formerly COO of Special Olympics Australia will work with the National office and Board to position the PRIA with a new strategic direction to tackle the challenges of the market and consolidate its position as Australia’s industry body for PR and communication professionals.

Can you help? Event sponsors, partners and speakers needed for 2013

Do you work for an organisation or have a client who would like to reach senior communicators working across Victoria? We have a range of exciting opportunities for them to get involved with.

Why subtle marketing is effective

Marketing is any type of communication – any part of the business that communicates with the outside world is marketing. The best marketing is done subtly. So what is subtle marketing and who does it the best?

So you think you can work?

Most people are committed to their role and want to do a good job. They are neither lazy nor un-willing, but they are not working efficiently – they work hard but not always smart.