Google Sidewiki: The PR revolution that won’t happen

You might have heard about the Google Sidewiki when it launched in September 2009. Google Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that lets you contribute and read information alongside any web page. The internet was buzzing: “Google’s Sidewiki is a Revolution in Social Media” wrote iMedia Connection, “Google Sidewiki could damage corporate brand reputations” PR Week claimed and “SideWiki will change the lives of beleaguered PR folk” wrote The Guardian. Yet, several months later Sidewiki didn’t take off and PR hasn’t changed. … Continue Reading

PR Toolbox: ITDatabase, media database with analytics

A few months ago I was approached by Travis Van, a founder of ITDatabase, who offered me a trial of his new product designed specifically for public relations professionals in the technology industry. At first I thought it will be just another database and I approached the trial with a bit of skepticism, but after a few days I realized this database is different than anything I’ve used before.

Yes, you get the same things you get from other databases: names, emails and phone numbers, but with ITDatabase you can also see the journalist’s recent articles and the topics he or she has recently covered and also get basic analytics of the coverage. … Continue Reading

When should I send that press release? Does it even matter?

You know how it works. You drafted a press release, the client approved it and you are getting ready to distribute it using one of many wire services. You upload it, select all the options and the time of distribution. When I went through this process last time, I started thinking whether it makes any difference which day and what time of day press releases are distributed. After all, companies spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for wire distribution services. If a little adjustment in the distribution time can make any difference, why not take advantage of it, I thought.

OK. I already can hear all of you out there proclaiming the death of the press release and the fact that public relations should move away from this communications tool. I should be really thinking about spending my time on other things than press releases, right? … Continue Reading

PR Tools You Must Try: News Tracking

(c) Dreamstime.com

It seems that almost everyday there is at least one new tool, gadget or a website that can make our life more productive and results of our work even more impressive. Because there are so many different tools available to PR professionals, I decided to review them, a few at a time, in this new series of quick reviews.

Today, I will tell you about three tools for tracking your company’s coverage and all of them are free. The next post will look at tools for tracking the blogosphere. … Continue Reading

Feeding bloggers and journalists with RSS

Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb recommends that PR people send him updates on clients via RSS feeds. He writes that one PR firm created a RSS feed for him that combines press releases and blogs of all clients and that he really likes that. That got me thinking about the possible uses of RSS in PR.

I am thinking about doing several different things:

• creating a RSS feed for press releases/blog posts for each client
• creating one RSS feed for all my clients
• doing both (with help of Yahoo! Pipes)

Once I have that, I will include the link in my signature and all client communication. Having a RSS feed provides an opportunity to send out news items that might not be worth a press release and sending out a pitch. Because the journalist or a blogger chooses to subscribe to the feed, it is not as invasive as an email, twitter, IM or any other tool, yet it is as effective.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Are you doing this already? Do you think journalists will subscribe? How would you let the journalist know about the feed?