The Main Difference of Online and Traditional PR and its Connection to Reputation Management

Traditional PR and what’s called online Public relations are 2 very different types. Generally, the PR or media relations that individuals were used to had something to do with placing segments or articles in news papers, magazines, TV and radio. However, unlike other kinds of marketing like direct marketing or advertising, the process of Public relations is story-based. More often than not, you’ll be needing reputation management services to determine which option is best for your company.

Its goal is to throw a persuasive story to the media, who’ll meet its needs, and also garnering coverage for you or your organization. When doing this, highlighting your service or product is important. However, helpful PR is absolutely not about hype and fluff. For your pitch to be a success, you should also enlighten, educate, and if you can, entertain combined with giving the readers, viewers or listeners information on a particular field or topic which they don’t have access to otherwise.


Possibly, the most important feature that differs public relations from other marketing types is that the stories are looked at the way that other articles or segments featured in the news are. They are evaluated and verified. Editors and segment producers are designated to assess the stories before getting run. This validation gives the news trust value which the print ad or commercial cannot deliver.


A person with the capability to pay for an ad can buy it, and that is fine. However, there’s a really huge difference between appearing in an ad from being featured within an editorial story. The value of trust that is achieved from being featured in the news is incalculable.


On the other side, online PR is a bit more akin to marketing or advertising as opposed to the traditional public relations. Generally, there is no third party involved to verify the story, no editors or segment producer to complete the vetting process or evaluate the article or segment which has been tendered. Online PR generally has something to do with posting information regarding online communities, blogging, email marketing campaign and distribution of online press release.

Unique online is the process of pitching bloggers. It is extremely different from a pitch to the usual media outlet because different bloggers discuss various things. Create your contact personal and don’t turn it into a pitch since bloggers aren’t in search of media oriented pitches and also PR releases.

Press releases being sent through PRWeb and PR Newswire are another online PR approach. And once again, this is accomplished very differently from the traditional media strategy. With this, landing mainstream media through your releases isn’t the main goal, if it is, then its time you think your strategy over. Primarily, press releases sent through such distribution sites are simply tools to aid your online visibility and ranking. Often, when using this method, the more releases you send out, the better for your company.
Keywords should be well mapped throughout the release, utilizing the proper keywords within the title, sub-title, as well as the body of the release. If it is the online press release route that you chose to do, utilize social bookmark services like onlywire or furl.net to archive your releases.


Even though the media can be influenced by online PR, its main purpose is always to correspond with others on the net using different websites and blogs. A great way though would be to fuse traditional PR with an online marketing approach. With this type of approach, you can use the validation of the traditional PR as well as the global scope of online Public Relations that allows you to develop a marketing program which is more better than the total of the parts. It is also a good move to consult online reputation management services to help you pick the best option for your company.

Haruki Murakami: Talent is Nothing Without Focus and Endurance

Renowned Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

 

Murakami came to writing later in life. After running a successful jazz bar in Tokyo for about ten years, he suddenly had the notion to write a novel. After his first two novels — both written after he closed the bar — were well-received, he decided to shut down his business and try his hand at writing full-time. To balance the sedentary nature of this new lifestyle, he also started running.

 

It's not surprising then that, for Murakami, the act of running and the act of creating are inextricably linked. As he writes about the evolution of his running career — from his first marathon to his first ultramarathon (62 miles) to his first triathlon — he constantly circles back to how his athletic experiences have impacted his writing practice, and vice versa. For Murakami, the creative process is a sport.

 

Here's what he has to say about talent, focus, and endurance:

In every interview I'm asked what's the most important quality a novelist has to have. It’s pretty obvious: talent. Now matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don’t have any fuel, even the best car won’t run.

The problem with talent, though, is that in most cases the person involved can’t control its amount or quality. You might find the amount isn’t enough and you want to increase it, or you might try to be frugal and make it last longer, but in neither case do things work out that easily. Talent has a mind of its own and wells up when it wants to, and once it dries up, that’s it. Of course, certain poets and rock singers whose genius went out in a blaze of glory—people like Schubert and Mozart, whose dramatic early deaths turned them into legends—have a certain appeal, but for the vast majority of us this isn’t the model we follow.

If I’m asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist, that’s easy too: focus—the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment. Without that you can’t accomplish anything of value, while, if you can focus effectively, you’ll be able to compensate for an erratic talent or even a shortage of it. I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I’m writing. I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else.
...
After focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is, hands down, endurance. If you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you’re not going to be able to write a long work. What’s needed of the writer of fiction—at least one who hopes to write a novel—is the energy to focus every day for half a year, or a year, or two years.
...
Fortunately, these two disciplines—focus and endurance—are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training. You’ll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of muscles I wrote of a moment ago. You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do. Almost imperceptibly you’ll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner’s physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up. And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee results will come.

In private correspondence the great mystery writer Raymond Chandler once confessed that even if he didn’t write anything, he made sure he sat down at his desk every single day and concentrated. I understand the purpose behind his doing this. This is the way Chandler gave himself the physical stamina a professional writer needs, quietly strengthening his willpower. This sort of daily training was indispensable to him.
...
Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate—and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn’t become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would definitely have been different.

 

Indeed, practice makes perfect!

Burberry's Fragrance Sampling Campaign via Facebook!

Burberry is launching a new Burberry Body fragrance in September, but you can’t pick up a tester at counters yet. The UK-based fashion brand is distributing the first round of samples exclusively to its 7.6 million Facebook fans.

Interested parties are invited to visit the Burberry Body tab on its Facebook Page to request a sample. The company is shipping samples to a broad range of countries.

Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer, announced the program via a YouTube video (above) cross-posted to its Facebook Page. Burberry’s fans are proving supportive of the campaign too.

Earlier this year Oscar de la Renta, a New York-based luxury fashion house, launched its flagship fragrance via a campaign on Facebook. After giving away 25,000 samples — a supply it exhausted in just three days — the brand’s Likes grew by 40%, said Erika Bearman, Oscar de la Renta’s director of communications.

In past interviews, beauty marketers have noted that Facebook fans tended to be their most loyal and engaged customers and, as such, make excellent recipients for sampling programs.

Like this, many companies are trying to utilize their own social media by coming up with compelling strategies that they can raise the brand awareness and interact with thier customers at the same time. 

How to Make Your Business Grow : Elevation Principal

Where’s Your Focus?
Have you noticed that everything is changing? Your industry advances, ideas expand, products morph and your customers move on. Nothing remains still.
The one thing that doesn't really change and remains constant is people. I’m talking about you, your peers, your customers, your prospects and your partners. Everyone wants access to valuable insight, great people and recognition BEFORE they want products or services. If you can focus on the true desires of people, you’re halfway to a successful mission. Where’s your focus? Are you focused on yourself, your products and your company? Or are you looking outward?

Why Marketing Fails

We’ve been taught that marketing is like a gift exchange. Acme Company gives something and Joe customer is obligated to respond. In reality, marketing has become a way to force people into obligatory situations. People don’t trust your business. Add to this that marketing messages are raining down on people EVERYWHERE they go. You can’t escape marketing.  Your customers have tuned out.

How to Build a Raving Fan Base

The solution is very simple: Focus on people.
You can meet the needs of people by helping them solve their problems at no cost. Remember that people’s core desires don’t change. When you help people with their smaller problems, many will look to you for their bigger issues.

Introducing the Elevation Principle

The elevation principle: Great content PLUS other people MINUS marketing messages EQUALS growth!

When you offer great content that focuses on helping other people solve their problems, you’ll experience growth because this type of content meets the needs of people. It doesn’t focus on you, your products or your company. It is a true gift for your audience.

The “other people” component not only means focusing on the needs of people but also people outside the company such as industry experts, who possess amazing knowledge that your audience will find very valuable.

The last part of the formula is to deliver this content in a marketing-free zone. Once the marketing messages are caged, the focus of your company shifts from “What can we sell you?” to “How can we help you?” You shift from pitching products to boosting people instead of investing in ads space.

The result: you demonstrate your expertise by the content you produce, the ideas you showcase, the stories you share, and the people you attract.

With the old forms of marketing, you pitch and sell. People ignore you and your business is at risk. With the new method, you give gifts, people trust you, and you become indispensable. Which course will you take?

The entire elevation principle is documented in the new book titled Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition.

Don't Overthink It: 5 Tips for Daily Decision-Making

 "What made you so efficient?" The answer is simple. “I make decisions.” We make hundreds of decisions every day – from what to focus our energy on to what to eat for dinner. Becoming a better decision-maker would be the fastest route to improve your daily productivity.

There are no hard and fast rules for decision-making. There are, however, a number of interesting tendencies that play into how we decide, which we should all be aware of.

Here’s 5 tips for daily decision-making:

1. Satisficers vs Maximizers.

Satisficers are those who make a decision or take action once their criteria are met. That doesn’t mean their criteria is low; but as soon as they find the car, the hotel, or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied.

Maximizers want to make the optimal decision. So even if they see a bicycle or a photographer that would seem to meet their requirements, they can’t make a decision until after they’ve examined every option, so they know they’re making the best possible choice.


Satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers must spend a lot more time and energy to reach a decision, and they’re often anxious about whether they are making the best choice. However, more information does not necessarily lead to peace of mind or better decision-making.

In other words, gathering additional information always comes at a cost. Once you have that information, make the choice and move on.

2. How less can be more.

We’re designed to make smart snap decisions based on limited information.

"Take the best" means that you calculate only as much as you absolutely have to; then you stop and do something else. So, for example, if there are 10 pieces of information that you might weigh in a thorough decision, but one piece of information is clearly more important than the others, then that one piece of information is often enough to make a choice. You don't need the rest; other details just complicate things and waste time.

In other words, we are designed to process information so quickly that “rapid cognition” – decisions that spring from hard thinking based on sound experience – can feel more instinctive than scientific. Trust your gut!

3. The three kinds of intuition.

In the creative and business worlds, you hear a lot of talk about intuition, and “trusting your gut.” But what does that really mean? It’s less simple than you might think. Columbia Business School professor William Duggan believes that there are three different types of intuition:

1) Ordinary intuition: just a feeling, a gut instinct.
2) Expert intuition: snap judgments, when you instantly recognize something familiar, the way a tennis pro knows where the ball will go from the arc and speed of the opponent’s racket. Always fast, but only works in familiar situations.
3) Strategic intuition: not a vague feeling but a clear thought, like ordinary intuition. That flash of insight you had last night might solve a problem that’s been on your mind for a month.Always slow, but works for new situations, which is when you need your best ideas.

In other words, this difference is crucial, because expert intuition can be the enemy of strategic intuition. We should trust our expert intuition (based on experience) when making choices about familiar problems. But when we need a break-through solution, we shouldn’t be too quick to jump to conclusions. That is, we must off your expert intuition and disconnec the old dots.

4. Trust experience.
We use the cognitive biases when making decisions and do not make very rational decisions in most cases, nor are we particularly good at predicting what will make us happy. If we don’t have the knowledge or experience to make a decision, the best course of action is to just ask someone else.


The differences between you and other people are so unimportant that you would do better predicting how you are going to like something simply by asking one randomly chosen person how they like it.


In other words, if you’re wrestling with a difficult decision, consult a friend or colleague who’s been in your situation before. Their insight will likely be significantly more valuable than almost any research.

5. Choosing your battles.

Some decisions, like how to handle a dicey client situation, are worth mulling over. Others, like deciding what brand of dental floss you buy, are not.We are constantly bullied into feeling like trivial decisions are incredibly important:

The modern marketplace is a conspiracy to trick the mind into believing that our most basic choices are actually extremely significant. Companies try to convince us that only their toothpaste will clean our teeth, or that only their detergent will remove the stains from our clothes… Why does the average drug store contain 55 floss alternatives and more than 350 kinds of toothpaste? While all these products are designed to cater to particular consumer niches, they end up duping the brain into believing that picking a floss is a high-stakes game, since it’s so damn hard. And so we get mired in decision-making quicksand.

In other works, ask yourself if this decision is really that meaningful. If it’s not, stop obsessing over it, and just make a call! Don't bother yourself by hesitating as your time is WAY more important and valuable than the toothpaste.

6 PR fundamentals to get media coverage!

The PR Fundamentals are even more basic than the PR Basics! The Fundamentals give you the brief overview of what Public Relations is.  Fist of all, NEVER ask journalists for media coverage if you want to get it. Instead, OFFER your help such as a vast list of contacts, your expertise, some quotes or data. Regardless of the outcome, just do it for a karma point.

 1. Thinking differently - this is of major importance. Normal people tend to get greated normally. Mostly though, they get ignored. Be a bit above normal, you'll get some good attention.

2. Reporters are your friends. They need to be. But : YOU DO NOT CONTROL THEM. you can't control what they write, you can't delude yourselves into thinking you can. It doesn't work that way. You can, however, suggest, offer, and support. This will help you, will help your clients, and  your own business. But you do not control what they write. The second you start to think you do, you'll be smacked down so fast, your heads will spin.

3. Learn to craft a press release that doesn't put people to sleep. Your CEO can tell you something that will put you to sleep. Your amazing craft of a job is to turn the snoozer into something caffeinated. Think about the release. What can you do differently to it? What can you do that grows it, which takes it to a level where someone won't immediately delete it? Can you add another level of creativity to it? What can you do that adds some kind of HOOK to it? Something that not only keeps the reporters' eyes open, but makes them go, "OK, cool. I can write about that."

4. Remember what a repoter covers, and hit that reporter with what he covers. DON'T hit the reporter with what he doesn't cover. The reporter will hit back. Don't "massblast." You'll get virtually no coverage, and lose a lot of future chances for coverage.

5. Finally, know your reporters before you pitch them. Regardless of what you're doing-a stunt, a typical release, anything-know the reporter. Know the likes and dislikes of the reporter befor you go to them with a release. They might like only a paragraph. Or just key points with nothing else. KNOW first. Then GO!

6. Super-finally: have fun. I'll say this over and over again. Have fun. PR is a fun game you should play. You can really enjoy yourself, if you do it right. So do it right.. Have FUN!

Samsung Galaxy Tab Challenges iPad With New Ads

thinner, faster and lighter!
Those are Samsung‘s approach which emphasizes qualities of its Galaxy Tab for the UK market.

The “Lighter” ad makes me think of a situation in which an elevator is so loaded up that the weight of a cup of coffee, rather than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, makes all the difference. The “Thinner” ad shows a dad camouflaging his Tab with a pencil. In “Faster” one, a bratty kid complains that his (unnamed) tablet is too slow while a kid sitting next to him is able to enjoy the speed of the Galaxy Tab.

Though the ads don’t mention the iPad 2 by name, we can figure out the Galaxy Tab is much lighter, faster and thinner than that, which can bring debatable controversy whether it’s faster.

It's slightly different from Comparative advertising which is an advertisement in which a particular product, or service, specifically mentions a competitor by name for the express purpose of showing why the competitor is inferior to the product naming it. Because it implies the competitor is iPad 2 but doen't mention it by name.

6 ways to make your presentation captivating

Presentation in any field has become inevitable as you know. It's never easy to prepare and give the presentation in front of audiences, but I usually manage to transform myself from someone who is terrified of standing up in front of an audience to an in-demand public speaker. Here's my point - and how you can do the same:

Treat the presentation as a creative project in its own right.

Don't think about "presenting your work." Apply the same level of imagination and passion to your presentations as you do the rest of your creative work. Once you do that, you'll start discovering all kinds of interesting ways to get your message across in a persuasive way. Here are some tips to help you make a killer presentation.

1. Tap your enthusiasm.

Everyone preparing for presentation says they want to be more confident - but what I can tell them is toforget about confidence and focus on enthusiasm. Confidence can be impressive, but it can still leave your audience cold. Enthusiasm, on the other hand, is infectious - it will be hard for the audience to resist your passion.

2. Get to the core of your message.
You must know how important it is to present the most important points clearly and simply. Only introduce details when people have grasped the big picture and are ready for more. If organizing information is new to you, then here's the alternative:
Boil your presentation down to three key points your audience must understand. This forces you to hone your message to its essence, and helps you remember the structure of your presentation (even if the worst happens and the projector fails). It will also make the message more memorable for your audience.

3. Tell a captivating story.

Next time you hear a presenter say "I'll begin by telling you a story..." watch the audience - you'll see them relax into their chairs. They are re-entering the pleasant "storytime trance" they knew and loved as kids. As their critical guard is down, and the speaker has a golden opportunity to engage them emotionally, by telling a powerful story that is relevant to the theme.
Once you have the seeds of a story, practice telling and retelling it until it makes you laugh, cringe, groan, flinch or grin as you speak. When it affects you like this, it will move your audience too.

4. Wow them with words.

You should never try to get your presentation word perfect, by memorizing every single word - that will only make for stilted delivery. But it does pay to sprinkle it with a few choice phrases and add the odd rhetorical flourish.

For instance, It's true that "statistics can be misleading," but that can't get people to sit up straight. Instead, say "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

5. Create stunning slides.
Slides are optional, but if you're going to use them, make them great. Even if you're not a graphic designer, it's relatively easy to stand out from the crowd of bullet points and PowerPoint templates, by searching creative and high-quality images.

6. Keep it simple.
Simplicity - focusing on core themes and eliminating fluff - is the key to a lot of great design, great writing, great music, and great art of many kinds. It's also one of the things that makes presentations powerful and memorable.

This is all you need for a truly captivating presentation:

• One big idea
• Three key points
• One compelling story
• One idea per slide (and no more than six words)
• One clear call to action

You probably don't have all of these skills, but I'm sure you have at least one or two. Start with these, then work to acquire the others using the resources I've listed.

For example, I'm pretty good with words, and telling stories is second nature to me, but I'm craving for learning how to develop visually striking slides. But if you're good at it, just start creating remarkable slides, which will boost your confidence - then start working on your verbal delivery and storytelling.

The ultimate test will be your audience's response. But a sure sign that you're on the right track will be when you start looking forward to creating your next presentation.