All Articles Tagged "public relations"
Media Maven Takes Entrepreneurial Leap
(Rolling Out) – Shabazz Communications, Inc. delivers strategic, top-notch media relations and winning public relations campaigns for its’ diverse client base. Founder and President, Thysha M. Shabazz is known for devising logical media and public messaging campaigns along with pitching her clients’ products and services to diverse media, thereby increasing their visibility and bottom line.
Shabazz Communications is also positioned to move all products, business, and brands of their clients effectively across all market sectors. In addition, the business is fast becoming known for their creative marketing campaigns, email materials and Thysha’s effective coaching and unique strategies. Rolling Out caught up Thysha M. Shabazz to learn more about her success.
Signing Mr. Wright: Music Exec Refuses to Get it Wrong
(TheLoop21) — He’s not super famous and he may not be knocking Jay-Z off of his position on the Forbes list just yet, but Byron Wright is a success story. Five years deep into his dream career the 28-year-old, is swiftly climbing to the top of the music industry’s list of “who’s who.” Wright is the Director of Writer/Publisher Relations at Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), one of the three Performing Rights Organizations that represent songwriters, music publishers and composers. “Byron has done an exceptional job of keeping his ears to the street and building relationships with uprising songwriters/producers,” brags his boss Catherine Brewton, who serves as Vice President of his division at BMI. The Atlanta native is responsible for signing many of today’s top hip-hop artists and producers to BMI including rappers Soulja Boy, Travis Porter and CyHi Da Prynce, as well as producers Bangladesh (Lil Wayne’s “6’7’”) and Kane Beatz (Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass”).
Making Good on Bad Press
(Inc.) — When a prominent critic slams your restaurant, how do you recover? Last August,New York Times restaurant reviewer Sam Sifton wrote that the food at Plein Sud in Tribeca was “lacking in flavor, texture, temperature or interest: room-service fare that leads to increased loneliness, raiding of the minibar, sleepless hours staring at the television in blue light, thinking about home.” Ouch. For an establishment that had opened a few months before the review was published, it was an ominous sign. The NYC restaurant industry is notoriously brutal, with even well-received eateries shuttering with little notice. So how did Plein Sud owner Frederick Lesort respond to the article?
Facebook Hired PR Firm to Trash Google
(Wall Street Journal) — Facebook Inc. used controversial tactics to try to shift the online privacy spotlight away from itself—and onto rival Google Inc. The social-networking company secretly hired a public-relations firm to push stories critical of Google’s privacy practices. But the strategy backfired when bloggers and journalists disclosed Facebook’s behind-the-scenes role, forcing the company to explain its tactics. Facebook hired WPP Group PLC’s Burson-Marsteller to pitch journalists and security experts on stories that questioned Google’s practice of collecting information from people’s Facebook and other social-networking accounts. Rosanna Fiske, the chief executive of the nonprofit Public Relations Society of America, said Burson-Marsteller’s lack of disclosure is “deceptive” and violates her organization’s ethical standards. ”When you are following misleading practices, the message is tainted,” she said. Consumers “wonder what else have they done that perhaps I shouldn’t trust.”
Kanye West’s Media Trainer Quits
(Boom Box) — Kanye West’s media trainer has reportedly quit her post, after having only worked with the opinionated rapper/producer for less than a week. Susie Arons, an executive vice president at Rubenstein Communications, the company that’s also represented HBO, News Corp. Paramount, Time Inc. and many more, was hired last week (Nov. 8) to coach Kanye for his appearance on the ‘Today’ show. After deliberating, the two agreed that it was in his best interest to cancel the interview. On Tuesday, Kanye suddenly changed his mind, opting to go through with the now-infamous interview with host Matt Lauer, requesting at the very last minute that Arons meet him at NBC’s Rockefeller Center studio to prep him for the show.
School Board Chief Wants $23K for PR
(Atlanta Journal Constitution) — Atlanta school board Chairman Khaatim Sherrer El proposes paying an outside company as much as $23,000 over three months to provide “crisis communications counsel” and help plan community meetings. The firm, Atlanta-based Alisias Group, has done work for the lawyer who represents El and other board members in defending against a lawsuit that seeks to overturn El’s September appointment as board chairman, Alisias President Richard White said. The additional proposed work for the school board is unrelated, White said. When it would be set in motion is unclear because it has not yet been approved by the board.
RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) — and Long Live the Tweet
(Ad Age) — Kanye’s belated arrival on Twitter (with a Twitter Verified Account, launched in July) has had me thinking about how, increasingly, the news media has a nifty new way of “reporting” entertainment news: regurgitating celebrity tweets. It wasn’t that long ago that a celebrity with something “important” to put out there, like an apology, would automatically say it through a tightly controlled protocol, like a set of engineered sound bites delivered via a well-staged interview. Now 140 characters or fewer suffices.
How to Write a Press Release
(Inc) — Take it from those of us who know: An easy way to ruin your relationship with the news media is to send a bad press release. Newsroom fax machines and reporters’ inboxes are flooded on a daily basis with press releases from companies, government agencies, non-profit groups, and even average citizens trying to get their neighborhood plight noticed. If you send in a press release that’s riddled with grammatical errors, buried in a convoluted e-mail, or completely irrelevant to the reporter’s coverage area, you might as well be tossing your press release down a sewer drain. If you deluge a news organization with unprofessional or uninteresting releases, your chances of ever getting favorable news coverage are zero-to-slim.
How Social Media Is Helping Public-Relations Sector Not Just Survive, but Thrive
(Ad Age) — In 2009 Katie O’Brien was looking for an agency partner to help her launch a major digital effort. The global digital marketing manager at Ben & Jerry’s issued a brief to a traditional digital shop and a traditional PR agency, Edelman. The plans they brought back were, in Ms. O’Brien’s own words, “night and day.”
What Are Social Media Good For? Putting a Face to a Brand
(Ad Age) – When marketers use terms like brand “personality,” “character” and “manner,” they’re more accurate than they know. New research into consumer brand purchase and loyalty behavior has revealed that the way humans respond to brands is simply an extension of the way they instinctively perceive, judge and behave toward one another. In short, people were the first brands; faces were the first logos. That insight could revolutionize brand and social-media strategies. Over the past several decades, social psychologists deduced that as humans struggled for survival they had to develop an ability to make two kinds of judgments with great speed and accuracy: What are the intentions of other people toward me? How capable are they of carrying out those intentions?
