Opportunistic marketing / pr: two recent examples
Every cloud has a silver lining and in the last few weeks I’ve seen the silver lining of the GEC with stories of people pursuing shiny new beginnings and opportunities after being affected last year. If you’re a positive and creative thinker you can see silver linings everywhere – not just in your dark cloud but in the dark clouds of others too – and this week a couple of great [...]
Measuring publicity results
When I started writing this post I thought I liked graphs a lot; probably more than most people but as I found out, not nearly as much as Craig Robinson who in the space of 10 minutes has become my personal hero. Unlike Craig, who once audited his life into a range of magnificent pie charts, my interest has remained strictly professional. Last week I caught up with Jye Smith and he asked how I measure [...]
Regional press – the (sometimes) forgotten hero
It’s not wise to have a narrow view of the media (or anything for that matter!). While glossy magazines and metro newspapers are big alluring publicity targets, they’re not the be all and end all. So give some thorough consideration to the unsung hero that is regional press. As Rural Press states on its website: “Regional newspapers have unique properties in terms of reach and acceptance in the market, making [...]
A new manifesto for PR
Is it just me or has PR been slammed more in the last month than in the last few years? The industry appears to be copping it from all sides. We’ve had: Neil Shoebridge’s AFR piece titled How to lose clients and annoy reporters. He argues that the PR industry is awash with incompetent people and outlines his top and deady PR sins. Jason Whittaker’s guest post on Mumbrella titled Precious PR [...]
Your news, your publicity, your side of the story, in full and unedited
In the words of Freddy Mercury: “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” The title of this post is a PR ‘fantasy made reality’ by the intro of a website called The FULL STORY. And not just for PR but for any business; we’d all like our news published our way. One of the best things about the internet is the ability to self publish at low or no cost. No longer [...]
Stellar* Analytics PR measurement and evaluation
You don’t know this but today is the Birthday of Stellar* Analytics; it’s officially 1 year old! We’ve been pretty quiet about our new baby but after 12 months of getting to know it, we are ready to unleash it! Stellar* Analytics is our custom measurement, analysis and reporting tool. It’s also a sophisticated online media centre which has pretty much saved our sanity here at Stellar* – but more on that later. Any [...]
A quick bitch about a slack pitch
Today something happened that made me appreciate why journalists loathe PR people who ‘slack pitch’ them. Let me explain. This morning I got an email from a PR person who was pitching their client to me for a possible story on the Stellar* blog. Firstly, the email was addressed to the sender with my email BCC’d, so it was a group email. Immediately I’m thinking: if you don’t know me, [...]
Rats and the rumour mill
I’ve never been fond of vermin; dirty, shifty little things they are. Somewhere in Sydney there is a rat spreading a rumour about our client, Justin Hemmes from Merivale. If you have any information, please call 1800-rat or leave a comment. Posted by Renee Creer
The best PR agency in the known universe
We’re in the business of blowing other people’s horns. We’ve become so accustomed to this role we often forget to blow our own. However, today we got this email from our client, The Wine Society, so we’re using it to blow our own horn: “Thank you for all your hard work and dedication. If people cannot see that Stellar* Concepts is the best PR agency in the known universe then [...]
Part 2: How to get coverage in the social pages
Here’s part 2 of our tips on getting your event in the social pages: 5. Hold your event later in the week when the social pages are being prepared and when people can feel a weekend coming on. If you hold your event on Friday or Saturday night don’t expect social coverage (see point 8). Wednesday or Thursday night is best and don’t rule out a breakfast or lunch timeslot [...]
Part 1: How to get coverage in the social pages
I love a party. The best party I ever went to was a wake. Let’s just say if it was the subject of a joke it would start something like this: “Fourteen people and a blow-up dolphin are in a spa…” but that’s a story for another time because I would like to keep my job and reputation in tact. We all know Sydney loves a party, but last week [...]
