Adam Toporek is the owner of IntenseFence Management Solutions and blogs about small business and franchising.

The past decade has seen some great public relations campaigns, particularly in the for-profit realm.

Doritos knocked it out of the park when it “crashed” the Super Bowl, Tourism Queensland put its island on the map when it created The Best Job in the World, and Old Spice reignited its stodgy brand by convincing women that buying their grandfather’s deodorant will give their husbands six-pack abs. (Testimonial from my wife: “Old Spice is full of crap.”)

To me, however, the Domino’s turnaround is the most brilliant PR campaign in recent memory.

In the midst of a recession, in a hyper-competitive and mature industry, Domino’s completely realigned the perception of its product and its brand while generating measurable financial results for its stakeholders. And it did so through an innovative marketing campaign that seamlessly integrated traditional advertising, social media, and public relations. Continue Reading »

Mondays are my super busy days. I do all staff and client meetings on Mondays in order to get the week on the right foot and (kind of) prepare for anything unexpected. I’m in meetings or on the phone for 10 hours straight, with little time to use the bathroom or eat.

So yesterday, when Shelly Kramer tagged me on Facebook to read this article and then when Troy Claus sent it to me via email, I knew the title was going to make my blood boil, but I hadn’t read it yet.

And boy did my blood boil!

PR Agencies Are Ruining Facebook.

I love sweeping generalizations like this. 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 »

Kary Delaria is a digital PR strategist and social media research analyst for Kane Consulting, a social media firm that specializes in cross-channel integration.

One of the biggest obstacles I’ve seen to social media success is that many people assume the same strategies and tactics that work well offline can be applied to this space. Most recently, this struck me with regard to influencer outreach.

I was discussing this with my colleague, Jennifer Kane, after she attended the Influencer Throwdown Panel with David Binkowski, Kevin Dugan and Krista Neher (moderated by Saul Colt) at SXSW Interactive. One thing that really got her thinking was this interesting concept that the panel posed:

The biggest mistake PR professionals make when working with influencers is to take a media relations approach, rather than a community relations approach. Continue Reading »

Matthew Royse is the author of Knowledge Enthusiast.

Social media is a game changer for public relations.  It is bringing new challenges and opportunities to the profession and to savvy pros.  I have outlined seven ways that social media is changing PR.

1. Two-way conversation. PR pros can no longer blast out information about their brand or client and expect to succeed.  Consumers and journalists have come to expect that they won’t be “spammed” and will be answered quickly and in a personal manner. Timely, two-way communication is the “new normal.” Listening, engagement and thought leadership are now three areas that PR pros manage. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Robert Herzog, chief financial officer at Harrison College.

You’ve been in this meeting.  I know you have.

“We can’t afford that. We’re not going to make our numbers this year, and this will only put us further out of reach.”  Or better yet, “Social media is for the college kids, it has no discernible impact on OUR business.”

Yes it came from the corner office, the one held by the chief financial officer. And if you heard those words, chances are your organization is already falling behind the competition. Continue Reading »

This first ran on Shonali Burke’s blog, Waxing Unlyrical. If you read it there, there is nothing new to see here. If you don’t know Shonali or her blog, I suggest high-tailing it over there. After you’ve read and commented on this piece first. Of course. Oh. And read the comments here. They’re new, too.

Week before last, TechCrunch took a stab at PR professional Timothy Johnson.

Actually, a stab is putting it mildly.

They called him a PR disaster and printed his emails to  Leena Rao, the “extremely sweet and mild-mannered colleague” of author  Robin Wauters.

Before you jump to a conclusion, let’s examine this from both sides: The side of reporter and writer Leena, and the side of PR pro Timothy. Continue Reading »

It’s Friday! On Wednesday Bill Prettyman emailed me about something we normally do on Thursdays and, when I told him it was only Wednesday, I think I took a few seconds of his life.

Bill! It’s Friday now!

We’re getting ready to launch beta 1.0 of Project Jack Bauer next week and soon you will know what the heck it is, what name we’ve chosen, and how you can get involved. Things are moving really quickly (too quickly) and we have only nine weeks left until launch. After the excitement of launching wears off, I’m mostly looking forward to sleeping.

It’s been kind of a slow news week this week, other than some New York Times blogger making me mad, but we still managed to find some goodies for you!

So, without further ado, the Gin and Topics for the week. Continue Reading »

Petya N. Georgieva is a PR specialist and a blogger who lives and works in Bulgaria. We asked her to blog for us today because we are going to begin exploring the similarities and differences of the communication industry in different countries. Thanks, Petya, for being the first from Bulgaria!

As I am the first Bulgarian PR pro to guest blog at Spin Sucks, I am not entirely sure what you would like to know about the PR industry in my home country of Bulgaria.

I may start with the fact that the profession is a young one and has been getting more popular during the past 10 years.

I may also say that the bigger part of society has the wrong perception on what is is that we do. This is because Bulgarian singers and fashion models pretend they work in the field because they organize parties and cocktails.

I may add that some of the clients that I have worked with have no idea how our industry functions, what its essence is, and how to evaluate success. Hence, I was very often asked the PR pros’ most hated questions, such as: ‘Can you tell the journalist to publish the article about us on the first pages?’. Continue Reading »

This first ran on Dec. 28, but we didn’t want you to miss it with the holiday time off. And it’s written for the hospitality industry, but we think the tips work well for any industry.

Guest post by Didi Lutz, an award-winning public relations professional specializing in the travel and hospitality industry.

I believe social media can help the hospitality industry through the Great Recession and give it a much needed communications makeover in the process.

The hospitality industry adopts late on most things new – especially technology. However, throughout 2010, we have seen a tremendous increase in hotels, both brand chains and independent properties, that have, at the very least, built Facebook and Twitter pages. Other hotels have chosen to join Foursquare and other rich media that make sense to them.

The publishing shakeout during the past couple of years that was fueled by the rise of social media provided hoteliers the opportunity to identify new areas where key messages can be shared and discussed in real time. From a PR perspective, the feedback gained from guests is priceless, but like any other communications vehicle, social media’s power must be harnessed to yield the most effective results.

Following are some tips for hotels to keep in mind in 2011 for social media PR: Continue Reading »