Ragan.com, a company that shares useful info about public relations and marketing communications, just posted an interview with Adam Brown, who is in charge of social media at Coca-Cola. I strongly encourage you to read the article and watch the video. Continue Reading »

Social media is online content such as blogs, social networking like Facebook and podcasts published by people who want to conenct with others via the Web. Are you one of those who think social media is just a fad and will eventually fade away? I hate to tell you, but social media isn’t going anywhere, and businesses are quickly catching on to its effectiveness as a communications medium.
The momentum of social media will only continue to grow. Eric Brantner of Digital Labz, a search engine optimization and Internet marketing company, provides ten reasons why:

1. Everyone is using it.  According to one study, over sixty million Americans have read a blog. Worldwide, that number is closer to 30 million.

2. Social Media is Gaining Trust. One of the knocks on social media used to be that it wasn’t trustworthy.  Today, social media is one of the top sources of news and important updates.

3. It’s Still Growing.  According to newly released statistics, Facebook s now growing by about 600,000 users each day. Blog reading has grown by over 66% in the last year. Continue Reading »

I recently discovered a way to get a daily dose of PR knowledge. It’s called “PR Breakfast Club” and it’s a daily email that’s free, informative, and interesting. Go to http://www.prbreakfastclub.com, and sign up. Today’s email is about social media and how all PR professionals should have a command of how to orchestrate a strategic social media program for a client.

This weekend I received a gift. It was the gift of time. What a simple but wonderful pleasure!

I had time to do some things on my two laptops that I normally just skip doing because the tasks are too time consuming……like setting up a  backup program to be sure I save all my data on my two hard drives (not too sexy but so important); synchronizing my iPod to iTunes  and downloading some new music I heard on the “Oprah” Show by Lady Antebellum; and finally, updating Norton Antivirus software.  Some of these tasks are insurance against having to spend future weekends trying to rescue my computers from disaster, and some were for pure pleasure; the simple pleasure of listening to good music on my iPod (which I am doing right now as I write this blog post!) Continue Reading »

I have had several clients ask me recently if I have some ‘young people’ in my shop who can handle their social media.

OUCH.

I have a problem with this on several levels. Continue Reading »

I am proud to know Seth Wescott. He lives in Carrabassett Valley, Maine, which is where I have lived since 1984.  When he won his Gold Medal in Snowboard Cross on Monday in the Winter Olympics, he displayed the American flag that had been his grandfather’s flag in World War II. Yesterday on the “Today” show, he told Matt Lauer that he had brought this flag with him in order to hold it up in the finish corral when he won a medal in honor of his family and his country. He had done the same thing four years ago in Torino when he won his first Gold Medal.

Seth is the best role model I can imagine for my two sons and for all the kids in the State of Maine. He is so humble, and he shows no pretense. He treats others with respect no matter who they are, or where they come from. He is so mentally focused  that he planned for success even though his trial runs weren’t going well. Many people would have mentally ‘checked out’ when they had to wear the black vest relegated to the lowest ranking competitor  in the final competition. But not Seth. He used it as a way to inspire himself to come from behind and literally pass the forerunner while flying through the air on the fifth in a series of five jumps. Continue Reading »

  I rush around the State of Maine in my car so much of the time that I rarely stop to admire the view.  However I typically have a camera with me because I take photos of press conferences and other special events for my clients.

So I was walking out of the Orange Cat Cafe in Kingfield a couple weeks ago, and looked out over the field toward the Carrabassett River, and saw this amazing view. Thank goodness I had my camera in my back seat. I snapped a photo so I could remember how beautiful that full moon was on that January afternoon.

The old saying goes: “Take time to smell the roses.”  Well the roses weren’t in bloom in Kingfield on this January afternoon, but the full moon sure was!

Thanks to Ragan’s PR Daily Newsfeed for bringing this story to my attention. Usually I would not advocate saying “no comment” to a TV news reporter but it would have been better to say that than to tell a reporter that your electric company’s rate are getting higher because of the time it’s taking to research answers to the reporter’s questions.  Karen Ryan, the PR Manager for Lee County Electric Cooperative in Florida, must be feeling the stress. Watch this video for a classic case study on what ‘not to do’ when a TV reporter comes knocking at your door. 

What should Karen have done to manage this situation properly? Continue Reading »