Today sees a very cool event called Help a PR Pro Out, or HAPPO. Initiated by Arik Hanson and Valerie Simon, its aim is simple – to connect PR jobseekers with agencies and businesses with PR positions available. I’m honoured to be part of the “team” that’s bringing HAPPO to Toronto, along with PR guy supreme Dave Fleet, of Thornley Fallis. Below you’ll find some current job listings in the Toronto and GTA area – please retweet on Twitter (there’s…

There have been a lot of new definitions and suggestions coming to the fore over the last 12-18 months about what PR stands for. The traditional version is Public Relations, and has been since as long as anyone can remember. However, solid PR folks like David Mullen suggest it should be People Relations, as does online marketer and social media guy Ari Herzog in a post from earlier this year. Often it’s called Press Relations or Print Relations. I had…

Okay, that’s a pretty bold title, and it may put some folk off, but sometimes you have no other way of saying something without diluting it. I was watching a conversation unfold on Twitter the other evening about public relations, and why a lot of the PR industry is in disarray. While the “bloggers and journalists don’t like us” line was shared a few times, one of the points that came up a lot was that the industry is still…

You’re a public relations professional or agency. How are you monitoring your brand and those of your clients? You are actually monitoring, right? I ask on the back of an interesting story regarding Michigan-based PR firm Tanner Friedman and their current lawsuit regarding a fake Twitter account. Back in January this year, an account was set up on Twitter that used the name @TannerFriedman. For anyone seeing the tweets from the account, you might expect them to be the latest…

There’s been a lot of talk about the relationship between the public relations industry and bloggers. I’ve written about it in the past as have others, yet still there’s this feeling of a barrier between the two mediums. As someone on both sides of the fence, I can understand each side’s views. Yet I can also see where both sides could improve. So, with no bias to either the PR industry or bloggers, here are some suggestions to help both…

This is a guest post from PR professional David Mullen, whose insights into the industry always intrigue me. I read his blog often and ask why many of his suggestions on how PR can evolve aren’t standard practice yet, and I’m delighted he’s sharing his views here today. You remember those days. You would run straight to your favorite diversion and play with reckless abandon until the bell rang. Or you’d start there and then visit two or three other…

Image by Chris Campbell via Flickr I had the good (?) fortune to sit down with the CEO of a PR agency in Toronto recently. He had been at a seminar I attended regarding converging technologies and mediums and how they fit into the role of the PR professional. We got chatting and decided to have lunch together. Now, I’m a pretty open guy to how businesses run themselves, but this lunch was an eye-opener. The conversation turned naturally to…

A recent blog post at ProBlogger.com offered new Twitter users a Top 10 list of the most useful and informative people to follow. Chosen for their ability to show people what Twitter and social media is all about, if contained some of the medium’s heavy hitters. So who would make a list of 10 public relations people to follow on Twitter?

The days of high retainer fees are long gone – or at least they should be. PR, marketing and advertising agencies need to realize what their clients already have – it’s a results-driven market. As money belts are tightened by businesses everywhere, agencies need to move with the times and offer alternatives. Does yours?

There’s an old saying that the customer is always right. It’s usually reserved for retail but it can be put to pretty much any business. Yet this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, as much as the client would like to be involved, they need to stand back and let your expertise take over to help you help them.