Mack the Flack

According to www.mediabistro.com a study shows that bloggers are predominately male (2/3), university educated (75%) and lazy, most spending less than three hours a week actually blogging.

Mack the Flack feels it’s only fair to point out that, although guilty as charged, he does have a full time job, family, friends and dog-walking duties that keep him pretty busy.

Learn how hard you have to work in your PR career at SFU’s Public Relations Certificate Program.  www.sfu.ca/cstudies/pr or call 778-782-5093 or email pr-staff@sfu.ca

Students from Temple University’s PR program prowlpublicrelations.blogspot.com have this advice for students new to the PR field. Mack the Flack agrees the advice is worth sharing.

Public Relations students Fall 2010

1. Keep a lookout for blog posts and articles that discuss how people view public relations professionals and what our role is in the new media landscape. The question I keep in the back of my head when looking for this sort of information is: What does the ever-changing industry landscape mean for current college students as we enter the workforce?

2. Instead of controlling all information you give out, serve as a connector for your client as well as your media contacts. Being a connector means that you make connections that help people in ways that do not necessarily benefit your client.

3. Press releases aren’t dead but you need to specifically target the channels that will effectively reach your publics. Sending press releases to thousands of media contacts without a specific target is like sending a beauty industry client’s information to a men’s lifestyle magazine – not productive.

4. Stay in contact with the people you have formed relationships with. Correspond with them about things happening in your area of expertise over lunch or through a quick email or phone call. These conversations may have little to do with your client, but as mentioned before it is all about your connections.

Learn powerful PR career tips in SFU’s Public Relations Certificate Program 3 week practicum.  www.sfu.ca/cstudies/pr or call 778-782-5093 or email pr-staff@sfu.ca

Lake Superior State University’s (LSSU) annual “List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness” (www.lssu.edu/banished) include some of Mack the Flack’s most hated:

1. Viral – anything popular, even for a microsecond, is “viral”. We’re sick of it.

2. Fail – LSSU flunks the word that describes anything and everything.

3. BFF – a friendship that lasts 10 minutes.

4. Wow Factor – leaves us unimpressed.

5. Man Up – verbing a noun doesn’t make you stronger.

6. Refudiate – time to repudiate Sarah Palin’s phoney word.

Learn useful, powerful and real words in Fundamentals of Public Relations.  www.sfu.ca/cstudies/pr or call 778-782-5093 or email pr-staff@sfu.ca

A New Year and time for a look at the latest “Dead Tech Walking” from CTV.ca

1. Camcorders and compact cameras – smartphones and BlackBerrys are taking their place. You can’t beat a slim device you can slip into your pocket that allows you to call, text, search for and photograph friends.

2. iPods and other portable music players – just like cameras and camcorders smartphones are killing off the MP3 business.

3. Discs of all kinds –Downloaded music has killed off CD sales and downloadable movies and programs will do the same to the DVD business. Not a good time for HMV or Blockbuster.

4. GPS devices – if you didn’t get one for Christmas don’t worry. Smartphones are about to make them obsolete.

5. Answering machines – voicemail is too slow. Texting, Facebook, Twitter and email are faster.

6. eBook readers – The writing is on the tablet. eBook readers doomed to just reading books, will be replaced by tablets.

7. Watches, alarm clocks and wall calendars – Ask anyone for the time, an appointment or a wake up call and you’ll know the cellphone has done in these old time tools.

Learn more about the latest Media Relations and Social Networking technology from our PR experts.  www.sfu.ca/cstudies/pr or call 778-782-5093 or email pr-staff@sfu.ca (more…)

Myth 1. No one reads the paper anymore.
While daily newspaper readership has levelled off across Canada online newspaper readership is on the rise. People still want content that helps them make decisions. They want it to be credible, objective, and easy to find.

Myth 2. We don’t need PR – we’re on Facebook!
Getting news is now a social act. Social media is now the way news spreads. Studies show that 75% of online news consumers get news forwarded from social networking sites. But social networking still runs on content and providing content is what PR professionals do.

Myth 3. Public Relations don’t generate sales.
In fact, studies have shown that PR outperforms advertising in generating sales by as much as 14 to 1. A relatively low amount spent on PR deliver high ROI and lift the impact of all other marketing.

Learn more about how Media Relations and Social Networking can help your organization. Learn from experts such as Carla Shore and Natasha Netschay Davies.  www.sfu.ca/cstudies/pr or call 778-782-5093 or email pr-staff@sfu.ca

One of my clients recently remarked that his company had been slow in adopting social media as part of its marketing effort because senior executives thought social media sites were just a “flash the pan” and would fade after just a couple of years.

Wrong.

Some figures worth noting:

• 2 billion YouTube videos will be viewed today
• 150 million people engage with Facebook every month
• 133 million blogs (including this one) are available online
• 110 million Twitter will send and/or receive a tweet today
• 70 million LinkedIn members will use the active networking site

Still not convinced social media is right for you? Consider this. The average social media user has 195 friends. If just 100 people “like” your website on their Facebook stream, they’ll personally recommend it to all their 19,500 friends. That’s how you spin social media clicks into gold.

Our Media Relations and Social Networking course teaches how to use social media to get the word out about their organization in order to build awareness and make new friends.

More details www.sfu.ca/cstudies/pr or call 778-782-5093 or email pr-staff@sfu.ca.

Climate change skeptics won’t be happy with the latest report vindicating one of the world’s leading climate research centres. The independent report says researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) acted honestly and their research was reliable.

But the report was critical of the scientists’ refusal to disclose their data.

The controversy began with the leak of more than 1,000 emails from the CRU which included attacks on the climate change critics. In those emails, CRU scientists also discussed how to stonewall skeptics. (Wikipedia has a full summary of “Climategate.”)

The release of the emails had a disastrous effect on public perception of climate change were the scientists hiding critical facts? The reactions to the leaks highlight the new world of social media. The scientists have learned that in today’s new media world, where anyone can expose information, openness is as important as accuracy.

The SFU Public Relations program starting in September includes Media Relations and Social Networking, an examination of new media and how it works in today’s corporate and political climate.

More details www.sfu.ca/cstudies/pr or call 778-782-5093 or email pr-staff@sfu.ca