The Public Relations Podcast

✅ TUESDAY 6th Aug FOCUS: - - Why did an athlete at the Olympics go viral? - What film reviews and modern YouTube can teach us about truth "making"? - What would you do with our fictional celebrity today? More at ThePublicRelationsPodcast.com

✅ THURSDAY’S FOCUS: - - It seems CMOs need PR people but aren't calling it PR - Can you use AI to create thumbnails for YouTube? I've tried it. - And the power of "newsjacking" More at ThePublicRelationsPodcast.com

So many of the comms conversations I read online are based on what we would like to be reality rather than what is reality. Listening back to a conversation I had recently, I found myself drawn in by the bluntness of a chat. This wasn't about textbook PR but about what this person's team are actually doing in difficult comms environments. Jim works with clients whom the public zeitgeist is...

It's PRBites from The Public Relations Podcast for 30th July 2024 - Good relationships are not enough to get coverage - Why you shouldn't stop blogging yet - Why a good pitch starts with a social media post

Do you stand and fight with every PR technique in the book, or release a watered-down statement when the public narrative goes against you? In part 2 of my chat with Jim McCarthy from CounterPoint Strategies LTD , we discuss some of the ways organisations can fight back and how perceptions of "media" and the public are changing the options available to communicators. This stuff, as usual...

If you want good coverage, cosy up to reporters. That's the conventional wisdom in Public Relations, right? But what do you do when that's not working? Jim McCarthy from CounterPoint Strategies LTD takes on clients where a negative narrative has often developed around them. To understand Jim's approach, you need to see (or listen) to the two parts of this chat. But, in essence, Jim fac...

Here's the 3rd and final reading of the PRBites Newsletter. It's packed with tips, ideas and headspace stuff to help you put comms in perspective on tough days. I thought I would share these as test episodes to see if you like them. Listen, don't listen. It's up to you! If I see people engage, I'll do more.

Another special episode of PR techniques, observations and news from the comms/PR with ideas you can use. It seems my test episode the other day, where I read the 8th July 2024 edition of the "PRBites" Newsletter aloud, was really popular, so I thought I would do it again. This is the 10th July edition. If you would like the newsletter, you can get it here - https://thepublicrelationspod...

Today, I'm bringing back Kathleen Lucente, a good friend and a favourite on the podcast, to share some invaluable insights into proactive crisis management. Just before we started recording, Kathleen had just come out of a crisis communication workshop with clients in a healthcare startup. Getting it right is crucial for a sector with so much regulation, as things can unfold quickly. I asked h...

A special episode of PR techniques, observations and news from the comms/PR with ideas you can use. It's the 8th July 2024 edition of the "PRBites" Newsletter read aloud which you can get at - https://thepublicrelationspodcast.com/subscribe-prbites/ Do you like this format? If so, let me know if you want more audio versions of it.

I think India is fascinating for PR, not just because of the ideas there, but because of the environment comms people work in. Just like Hollywood can teach us about narrative due to its intense focus, India can teach us how to handle topics in a diverse environment where getting it wrong can backfire badly. Take women's health. For many, it was and still is a taboo topic there. So how do you...

How do you create a social movement for your organisation? It's something that we all try, but it doesn't always work. In this episode, we're looking at two recent movements to see if we can reverse engineer them. We'll look at the importance of a strong narrative, of a David versus Goliath story, of real-time feedback, and more. THE PROJECT - www.commsbreak.com Video and Audio lin...

Event PR - You tell journalists about the event and who is speaking, and then sit back. Well actually no. I was speaking to a journalist recently who said it's getting harder and harder to justify going to events, especially if they can't guarantee they will get lots of good stories. The fact an event happened isn't a story. They are looking for launches, announcements, key new details...

In this episode of The Public Relations Podcast, we delve into some of the most common mistakes made by people pitching to outlets. I then test whether ChatGPT can do a better job. What I'm talking about are the secrets of crafting PR pitches that get noticed and accepted. I look at how even the smallest amount of research can transform your pitches from the trash bin to the top of the pile. W...

Today... going behind the scenes of an environmental campaign that needed to be launched in a place where being eco-conscious is quite hard. How do you do that? Ivan Martin from PRSSWRKS.com lives on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean. They have a big problem. When you have so little space, being environmental is hard due to the logistics. So how did he help his client do that and get the me...

AI has helped the rapid growth of misinformation online and the ability of less sophisticated groups to target organisations with devastating effects. But just how serious a threat is this?  In this episode, we look at the capabilities this new technology is bringing and some ideas on how to prepare for it.  I chat to Rafi Mendelsohn from Cyabra to....  Understand the Landscape: We learn about the...

A special episode announcing a new newsletter for The Public Relations Podcast called "PRBites". But as part of that, I'm releasing a video/audio version of the newsletter which is normally for members-only. Within the video and newsletter, we're talking about Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds and his unexpected journey into sports management. We'll look at three strategies Reyno...

I haven't looked at #PRrequest and #JournoRequest on Twitter/X for a long time, but after chatting to a friend recently and hearing they had secured some TV coverage through it, I thought I'd take another look. It's been a few years since I last looked, so I was curious to see what had changed and what stood out as things you needed to do to get noticed I found about 8 things which I&#...

Dive into the compelling world of storytelling and its profound impact on public perception in this insightful episode of The Public Relations Podcast. We look at the fascinating case of the UK post office worker scandal—a story that lingered in the shadows of journalism for years, only to be thrust into the national spotlight through the emotive power of television drama. We'll examine why ce...

As you know, I'm always interested in the reality of the world of communications, not just what we might wish to believe. That's why I was so pleased when April White from Trust Relations reached out recently to discuss their observations. They've noticed that when pitching consumer products to outlets of nearly any size, including some sort of incentive has become essential. Note, she...

A couple of weeks ago a TV drama hit the headlines in the UK. It changed government policy. It told the true story of how post office workers had been wrongly convicted of fraud by a faulty computer system. But the story wasn't new. Journalists had been trying to report on it for years. So, why did it suddenly gain national attention now and more importantly what can professional communicators...

The team representing a Bollywood model and actress in India announced she had passed away from cervical cancer a week ago. Newspapers ran tributes, colleagues paid their respects. But 24 hours later she announced she wasn't dead but had just been trying to raise awareness of the terrible disease. Did she go to far? The backlash has been enormous but was it worth it from a PR perspective? To d...

Send a pitch to the media with 50-100 words in it and you have approx 7 times more chance of getting a response than sending 1000+ words. Obvious? The data is in from Propel PRM Media Barometer Q1 2024 which came out today. The data is collected from email pitches and also shows that while the average response rate to pitches is 3.15%, pitches with an email subject line with 5 or fewer get respond...

PR and its study human nature is of course global and so it was such a delight to finally welcome a true legend of PR in India, Komal Lath from Tute Consulting on the show. Komal is someone with huge energy and tons of experience. We discussed her campaign with Minimalist, a skincare brand, and how they got influencers to tell the story of the brand. We talk about whether 2024 is the year that org...

In this episode of The Public Relations Podcast I'm joined by Kathleen Lucente from Red Fan Communications. One of the topics we focus on this week is the question of how far is too far to go with publicity stunts. Our goal as communicators is to get attention and generate conversations. To do that we have to be saying or doing something that stands out. But, what is too much? We also talk abo...