I don’t know why the new service from Cision makes me want to play hide and seek. Perhaps because it’s named Seek or Shout? It makes me all juvenile.

But the service itself is not juvenile (apparently that’s just me).

For those of you who have been in the PR industry a long time, you likely know HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, created by Peter Shankman and then sold to Vocus in 2010.

Well, now Cision has a similar service, but it’s for journalists, bloggers, and PR pros. Continue Reading »

Do you remember your first Etch A Sketch?

How many of you still have one? I’ll bet those of you with kids have one in your house.

The company is 104 years old and hasn’t had a new PR campaign in decades.

Until now.

Enter a really stupid comment made by a Romney senior aide, who said, for the general election, the candidate could hit the reset button (implying, of course, he may flip flop in order to win votes), making the comparison to how the toy works. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by David C. Rickey, chair of the PRSA PR Defined Task Force, in response to Redefining Public Relations by Gini Dietrich.

The discussion and debate around the Public Relations Society of America collaborative “Public Relations Defined” initiative, in which PRSA and 12 allied professional organizations have given public relations and other communications professionals a platform to shape a modern definition of public relations, has been robust, spirited and, perhaps most of all, strongly opinionated — all good things for the profession.

With the release of the three final candidate definitions for public voting, and with the winning definition to be adopted by PRSA, more strong opinions now are being expressed.

We certainly anticipated a diversity of opinions and our fair share of criticism, and public relations professionals never disappoint with their passion. Continue Reading »

Right before the holidays, PRSA embarked on a new initiative: Redefining public relations.

An admirable undertaking and one that surely was not to please everyone, they made an impressive decision to have the definition crowdsourced.

There were, of course, some flaws in how you could submit your definition. In an effort, I would guess, to make everything uniform and make it easier for them to get through all of the responses (nearly 1,000 of them).

Last week they announced the final three definitions and voting is open for you to participate.

I have lots of friends at PRSA so I hope they don’t take offense to this: The definitions suck. Continue Reading »

A couple of weeks ago, Steve Cody wrote “You Don’t Know Jack About Public Relations” in his Inc. column.

I know Steve. He and I both are cyclists and favor shipping our bikes to Counselors Academy every year so we can ride with a small group of friends.

I like him. A lot.

I respect the heck out of him for the agency he’s built in the last 16 years.

But he’s wrong about the difference between advertising and PR. Rather, he’s describing publicity, and that’s what is wrong with the perception of our industry.

We are not just publicists. It’s ONE tactic we use in an overall communication program.  Continue Reading »

Last week Heather Whaling wrote a blog post called Dear PR Pro, Is PR Just Professional BSing?

The gist of it is that she was teaching a college course and one of the students said her family and friends thinks she’s going in to a field to professionally BS.

If you’re in PR, you’ve heard this from your friends and family. I remember when Wag the Dog came out and my mom called, after seeing it, and said, “Boy! They don’t make your profession look good.”

Um, no.

So we’re accustomed to either people responding that way or glazing over when we say what we do (that happened to me at a dinner party on Saturday night). Continue Reading »

If you regularly read Spin Sucks, it won’t come as a surprise to you that I’m a really big believer in using PR and marketing to build income (and, in some cases, profits and higher margins).

Measuring results has become even easier during the past five years and, because of that, we have to stop doing things that grab media attention, but don’t make sense for the brand nor drive sales.

It’s our responsibility to measure results; it’s not the responsibility of our clients or our executives.

Our responsibility.

That’s why, when I see things like the following news segment with the Guinness Book of World Records-seeking World’s Finest Chocolate, I go a little nuts. Continue Reading »

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving to work and I heard an ad on the radio that the day marked the beginning of Shark Week.

Actually, I didn’t really pay attention to the ad; I’m sure I was flipping stations. But a few minutes later I heard THE BEST Shark Week PR.

I have no idea if Discovery Channel actually sent this to the radio stations. If they did, it seriously is the best PR ever.

There are 20 things that are more likely to kill you than sharks.

Are you ready? Continue Reading »

Valerie Merahn Simon serves as a senior vice president at BurrellesLuce and is a regular blogger for BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

The other night, as I read through a certain news release for the fifth time, I began humming a slight variation to an Avril Lavigne song.

Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?
Writing like I know about or care about your jargon
has me frustrated
Brands like this, you
Create stress, make a mess
You confuse and dilute
What you say, please turn it into honesty
Promise me I’ll never gonna hafta translate it

Understand that my plea on behalf of consumers everywhere is not a charitable request. Continue Reading »

Neicole Crepeau is a partner in Coherent Interactive, which specializes in web, mobile, and social media design and implementation for small and midsized businesses.

I’m not a PR person. That’s not my background or my training. I don’t have to be a PR person to know that the debate over PR and its definition is the same debate that other disciplines have had, with much the same resolution.

I read the New York Times article that spawned the debate, after seeing posts from my pals Jayme Soulati and Jenn Whinnem. I’ve read many of the subsequent posts, including Gini Dietrich’s very honest assessment of her firm’s own missteps and Heidi Cohen’s collection of 31 definitions of PR.

I understand the emotions of those in the industry, who may feel unfairly attacked or misunderstood. Yet, if those under attack looked around, they’d find other people in other industries suffering the same types of misunderstandings. Continue Reading »