The White House is not the only place that sometimes has trouble keeping the peace with journalists – sometimes nonprofits do too. The first … [more]
When I first started working at an international nonprofit organization as their communications director several years ago – I confronted a terrible problem familiar to many nonprofit professionals – the staff were using complicated graduate school level language when they wrote copy for the newsletter and the website. … [more]
Facebook released a guide this month to help nonprofits improve their relationship-building and marketing through Pages. If you’ve been managing a Pages account for a long time, it’s a great refresher on best practices, but there’s not a lot of new content. If you are new to managing Pages for a nonprofit or association, … [more]
Video production is becoming a bigger player in nonprofit and association communications, as the cost of gathering footage becomes cheaper and anyone can produce video footage on an iPhone, iPad, FlipCam, webcam or other digital camera. While collecting video footage is easier than ever before, many organizations still need to hire … [more]
Making friends and marketing yourself or your organization on Twitter may seem daunting to someone who is just starting. Or you may have joined Twitter a while ago, but feel like your efforts have stagnated. How do you go about getting a foothold on Twitter and finding friends? Here are five tips to help:
Tip #1 – Know what you want … [more]
You’ve gotten a call from a television news reporter and he or she is on the way over to interview you about a trending story and it’s something your nonprofit cares about. It’s not hard to mess up a television interview, and if your goal is to screw up, here are five easy ways to do it.
Don’t tell your public relations … [more]
The survey was conducted October-December 2010 and included 260 … [more]
Giving a great speech that motivates and inspires is not easy. It requires finesse, tact, and knowledge. It’s easy when you work for a cause, to assume that giving a speech will be easier if you are passionate about the topic. After all, this isn’t your tenth grade English class where you’ve been tasked to write a speech … [more]
Can one tweet make a difference on an important issue, when sent out succinctly, with facts and in a timely way while news is still breaking? Oh yes.
Shaun Dakin, one of my online PR colleagues who participates in Progressive Communicators, sent out this tweet on Friday. He was touched by the shooting and found these facts published … [more]
If your New Year’s resolution was to improve your presence on Twitter for yourself, your business or your employer, then here are a few problem behaviors to avoid with some tips on how to improve:
Problem #1: Not educating yourself about Twitter. It takes time to learn about hashtags, craft witty (or at least interesting) 140 … [more]
The Independent Public Relations Alliance recently held a packed house lunchtime program “Secrets to Getting Ink in Traditional and Digital Media” near Tyson’s Corner with journalists from The Huffington Post and USA Today. There was plenty of practical advice on pitching that will ring true for PR pros.
Gwen … [more]
While we all know that we should send releases to only the reporters who want them, who are covering the topic at hand, and might genuinely find … [more]
Mining editorial calendars can help you plan your PR outreach efforts and be successful. Photo via Creative Commons.
There’s a secret tool to help public relations professionals plan their story pitches in advance for magazines, major blogs and other publications – editorial calendars. Published months in advance, … [more]
The Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference was a great success last week, and I’m blogging a few nuggets of wisdom from the event.
One of the keynotes was delivered by Robert Wolfe, co-founder of Crowdrise, an online social fundraising platform that helps people raise money and volunteer for their favorite causes and have fun while … [more]
New York Times Haggler columnist David Segal recently called out the entire public relations industry for its spammy email tactics. And it was a trouncing our industry deserved. For far too long, PR flacks have extracted thousands of email addresses for reporters from expensive databases that they subscribe to, and then blast-emailed … [more]
The Pepsi Refresh project continues to award grants on a monthly basis ranging from $5,000-$50,000. Lucky projects winning funds have included scholarship recipients, civic leader education, a community playground, veterinary services and much more. Even a classic wooden roller coaster was restored, thanks in large part … [more]
I really enjoyed attending the “Perfect Pitch” workshop organized by the PRSA-NCC chapter yesterday. The event included a panel discussion with four journalists: (1) Dion Haynes – real estate editor for The Washington Post, (2) Jayne O’Donnell – retail reporter for USA Today, (3) Hank Silverberg … [more]
When nonprofits start thinking about how to pursue news coverage, they often think of television and its impact first. But they might be overlooking a great medium in their local community – radio. While many have trumpeted the death of radio – it’s thriving today. A story last month in Nonprofit … [more]
