The Good, The Bad, The Spin

Public relations folks have the unfortunate benefit of being viewed as multi-faceted experts. Hopefully. From media relations strategies and new media advocacy to writing and editing, we are easily pigeonholed into a particular skill-set.

It’s a trap that is easy to fall into. You can get pulled into time-consuming newsletter editing, being the go-to person for news release distribution (for the most frivolous of “news”) and so on. Here are tips to avoid these traps–and to save precious time throughout the day. (more…)

A while back I touted the virtues of Gmail for public relations uses. To recap, Gmail offers the ability to tag (label) messages with multiple tags. This, as opposed to MS Outlook which uses folders, allows PR pros to apply multiple labels to their emails. In short, the ability to store and retrieve messages by keywords allows us to better manage our online conversations. Also, other email accounts can be forwarded to Gmail without others knowing you’re using Gmail as your primary email interface.

Google offers far more than just Gmail. There are four other important features Google offers that give us increased potential to enhance our effectiveness for public relations. (more…)

I recently converted to Gmail and it wasn’t exactly painless. It was a move based on principle. SBC Yahoo announced, in a somewhat Draconian manner, that it was going to be displaying ads on the Yahoo Mail interface. I was never keen on the Yahoo interface and used this news as a springboard to switch to Gmail. I had two Gmail accounts already and figured that since Gmail is free (with its text advertisements) and Yahoo’s DSL email, which I pay for, displays full graphic ads, it was time for change. Plus I needed to better separate business and personal email accounts. (more…)