Polly's Power-PR

If you have a message to deliver, you can benefit from researching the views of your target audience and knowing the media they watch or read. This approach argues against a shotgun theory of PR – trying to disseminate your message everywhere – and suggests that you be more selective in where and how you [...]

Uggie the Jack Russell Terrier “stole the show” at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards. He interrupted an acceptance speech and won an interview with People Magazine. Of course, we live with a Jack Russell Terrier and they are natural attention-getters. Uggie is the canine character from the movie, The Artist, which won the award for best picture (comedy [...]

Everybody loves a winner! That point hit home when I attended a Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) basketball game last week – the 11th consecutive sold-out game of the season. Wow! VCU is my alma mater. I went to VCU’s night school to earn two degrees – a BA and an MBA. Everyone in Richmond, Virginia, knows [...]

Link-building is the name of the game today in public relations. A well-planned PR program builds inbound links to your website through news release distribution, article placement and awards nominations. In a commentary on OpenForum, “6 Common SEO Mistakes on Small Business Websites,” Rae Hoffman-Dolan describes the importance of links: “Links are still widely believed [...]

The legend of Santa Claus is one of the world’s best PR campaigns. Think about it. Santa Claus is known world-wide, sometimes by different names. He represent love and giving and children. People have added to Santa’s retinue over the years, with Mrs. Claus, the elves and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but Santa remains a [...]

Are you taking advantage of Facebook’s new “Subscribe” button? It looks like a great way to share your commentary beyond your groups of friends and family. To start attracting subscribers, add a “Subscribe” button to your Facebook page. That way, anyone who is interested in what you have to say, can tune in. Facebook provides [...]

I’ve seen everything now….The Washington Post is reporting on the Russian president’s Facebook postings! In the A-section of today’s Post, Kathy Lally reports: “President Dmitry Medvedev used his Facebook page Sunday to disclose that he has ordered an investigation into reports of election fraud, a statement his audience greeted with derision. “The posting quickly went [...]

A niche in time saves nine! Of course, I’m rephrasing the old English proverb, “A stitch in time saves nine.” Forgive me, but it relates. When you’re starting a business, it’s best to find your special niche before you waste too much time and money trying to compete in the open market. Michael Hess writes [...]

The use of social media can’t replace the news release – a staple of the PR Profession – but it can augment the distribution of your news. According to a report from PR Newswire and Crowd Factory: ” Creating sharable content and enabling sharing capabilities through the relevant channels can dramatically increase the number of [...]

We’re all interested in growing our businesses to the next level. Forbes.com published an article, “The Billionaire Business Owner’s Playbook,” on November 9. The article featured an interview with Clay Mathile, #242 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. After selling Iams Co. to Proctor & Gamble for $2.3 billion, Mathile founded a non-profit [...]