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PR is not lobbying

Posted on by Brian Lee

JCOPELobbying is “the act of attempting to influence business and government leaders to create legislation or conduct an activity that will help a particular organization,” according to businessdictionary.com. Public relations may share the same goals and clients as lobbying, but PR is not lobbying.

It’s disheartening that the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) wants to extend state lobbying regulations to include aspects of public relations. That’s why I’m glad the Public Relations Society of America, the PR Council and the Arthur W. Page Society have teamed up to fight this.

Read more about this joint effort.

I look forward to learning local PRSA chapters can get involved.

Facebook does it again

Posted on by Brian Lee

EmojiEveryone has their own reasons for being on social media, including Facebook, but does everyone want to know that Johnny is feeling ‘haha’ because of something his friend posted? Well now we will, as a result of Facebook’s launch of Reactions.

Facebook Creator Mark Zuckerberg made the change because the platform needed another way for users to interact with posts, for the obvious reason that not every post is likable (e.g. a dog passing away).

What better way to show these than with emojis?

So now anytime a business posts on Facebook, they will be able to find out the true feelings of its customers–love, haha, wow, sad and angry. Depending on the feeling, this could fare well for companies.

It will be interesting to see how this works. Stay tuned!