Category: Public relations

The importance of accreditation in PR

Posted on by Brian Lee

The Public Relations Society of America announced this week that it’s planning to enhance the profile and prestige of the Accredited in Public Relations (APR) Credential.

In an article titled, “Should PR pros get accredited?” on PR Daily, I talk about how accreditation helps separate the contenders from the pretenders. That’s because public relations is an experience-based profession, meaning that you learn more on how to do it outside the classroom than inside. As a result, it has a low barrier to entry, and anyone can claim they “do PR” without an education of the basics.

Let’s take a look at media relations (e.g. pitching), what a lot of people associate PR with. Many so-called PR practitioners will promise only media coverage for their clients. But all accredited professionals know that media coverage alone is not a goal or objective, it’s simply an output.

Thus, it’s unfortunate that a few bad apples can spoil perceptions about the profession, an example being Facebook hiring a PR firm to plant negative news about Google. I’m hopeful that as more professionals earn their accreditation, the perception of PR–both internal and external–will be much improved.

Why media training is important

Posted on by Brian Lee

Missed opportunities.

That’s what I tell clients you can avoid with media training. Chances are interview opportunities are going to be far and few between. You don’t want to regret or waste those one or two sound bites you’re going to get.

I know many new and seasoned business owners who panic and/or don’t know what to do when a reporter calls–things like return calls promptly and speak on message.

Media training helps you emphasize your key talking points and avoid traps for all types of interviews, including on camera, live, radio and phone. As with any skill, practice and repetition makes perfect.

Here’s a test: Tell me clearly and succinctly what your company does (no slogans, no jargon). You’ll be surprised how difficult this question can be without training. If you think this is tough, imagine answering questions during a crisis!

Good apology by Yahoo! Fantasy Football

Posted on by Brian Lee

Just after 11 a.m. CT Sunday, Nov. 11, I went to the Yahoo! Fantasy Football page to double-check my line-up for any injuries, as I and many others always do. To my surprise, the page didn’t load, and wouldn’t load after many retries. I even tried my mobile app, but that didn’t work either, so I gave up in frustration.

Ken Fuchs, head of Yahoo! Sports, apologized the next day in an email sent to all users. I thought it was well-written: he owned up to the mistake, identified correctly the victims (fantasy football players, NOT Yahoo), didn’t say anything contradictory (e.g. “our servers never fail”) and aligned himself with the victims (“as a Yahoo! Sports fantasy player myself …”).

Two days later, Ken sent another email detailing the problem (new configuration of hardware failed) and offering some compensation (free access to the “Scouting Report” and 20 percent discount to Yahoo! Sports Store).

I was fortunate that the outage didn’t affect me, though I can see how angry some people would be if they didn’t get to set their line-ups prior to the outage. The compensation can’t make up for a lost game, but it can move Yahoo! slowly back in the public’s trust.

My only disappointment was that Yahoo! waited until Monday to say anything. Even some kind of note on Sunday acknowledging that the site was down and was being worked on would have been helpful.

Still, kudos to Yahoo! for how it handled a very tough situation.