We had a big party, but got no buzz. Lessons from a PR failure.

Use the principles in this article to tighten and fine-tune your company description, and test it with prospects. See what they conclude about which problems you solve and for whom. When they answer correctly, you'll know you hit the nail on the head.

Communications consultant Alan Kelly has spent the past several years analyzing the various PR moves employed by companies, politicians, and executives. He has created an interactive table of PR “plays”or moves.

For over 10 years Jason Calacanis (founder of Silicon Alley Reporter, Weblogs, and Mahalo) has been the subject of many new stories. He's also been a reporter on the other side of the table. As a result, he feels that he has learned a lot about how the PR and the press works--especially in the technology business. His philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real. Here he offers up ten tips on how to do PR for your startup.

Effectively fielding questions from the press can really help your organization boost its public image, while failing to cooperate can sometimes be disastrous. Before the journalists come calling, develop a strategy for how you will handle media inquires.

Of all the outside firms that entrepreneurs employ, PR firms probably have the toughest time getting--and staying--in their clients' good graces. Some companies feel they aren't getting as much media play as they deserve, while others think they're garnering the wrong kind of attention. Meanwhile, the cost-benefit analysis for public relations is pretty hard to calculate. We thought it would be interesting to get a sense of what PR people think about the companies they work for. So we asked Geri Denterlein, the founder and CEO of Denterlein Worldwide, a Boston-based PR agency, to write a letter to her clients explaining how her company can work with them to be more successful. We also asked her to dish on what client habits are, well, annoying. Here's her letter.

Recent financial scandals have created a crisis in the relations between public companies and their investors. Companies need to find ways to restore their credibility and reconnect with their investor base. Paradoxically, most good companies already have the right analytical tools at hand. Seen from the perspective of the financial markets, a company's ultimate product is its equity. So, companies need to start applying to their shareholders the same kind of strategic disciplines they typically apply to customers.

We all want press coverage. We all have visions of the rest of the world valuing us, our companies, and our contributions.

But what happens when a reporter really is on line one? A blessed few can pick up the phone and say brilliant things. The vast majority of us panic.

The merger is done and it should be time to sit back and relax a bit. Now management is busy putting the new company together and everything is on track. Trouble is, management, your board, and Wall Street may not take your word for it. Booz Allen Hamilton's Gerald Adolph writes in Corporate Dealmaker magazine that determining how to measure merger success should be part of the earliest post-merger integration planning. There are three major challenges, Adolph says: 1) separating merger benefits from other nonintegration business and market changes; 2) demonstrating that the merging companies are doing what they said they would do (and if not, are deviating from the plan in a controlled fashion); and 3) quantifying the bottom-line impact of the merger integration.

During the past few years, a number of academicians have been seeking ways of more effectively determining the overall value of PR, not only to organizations in particular, but also to society in general. Two academicians who have played a leading role in this area have been Dr. Linda Childers Hon of the University of Florida and Dr. James E. Grunig of the University of Maryland.

Their efforts in seeking to develop a reliable PR Relationship Measurement Scale are documented in the pages that follow.

The problem with measuring blogs is not how to do it, but rather that the nature of blogs renders management impossible. This paper looks at both the tools and techniques that can be used to get a handle on this phenomenon, and provides advice to communications professional on what to do with the data once they have it. This article describes the basic structure of a blog measurement program and describes a few of the tools available for measurement. It also describes more sophisticated methods of blog measurement as well as discusses ways to participate in the blogosphere. [BNET Annotation]

risis communication is essential, but it is only an adjunct, not a substitute for consistent and persistent communications with the organization's various key constituents, day in and day out. Some of the essential steps to good press relations include: ability, anticipate, accuracy, appearance, attention etc. This article discusses do and don'ts of medis relations in detail. [BNET Annotation]

The Web has changed the rules for press releases. The thing is, most old-line PR professionals just don't know it yet.

Note: CEO Refresher articles are no longer free...

---

There's a part of the PR puzzle that even savvy publicity-seekers sometimes miss -- you can't just write "a press release", you have to write the right kind of press release. There's no such thing as a "one size fits all" release. Smart publicists have variations of the press release model ready to be go, depending on the occasion.

Scan the newspapers for the latest political or corporate crisis. All too often, you will find organizations and leaders incapable of delivering promises that, straightforward when articulated, became prohibitively complex in execution.

Promise management - the science of systematically connecting what we say with what we do -- is quickly becoming a differentiating factor in the decision making mindset of the twenty-first century. This has profound implications for corporations and leaders.

During World War II two Harvard University psychologists - Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman - studied wartime rumors and came up with a mathematical formula that described the way a rumor works and suggested ways to control or eliminate a rumor.

During a corporate crisis, the media can aggravate an already difficult situation. But by employing effective media relations, leaders can guide their companies safely through the storm.

Corporations that accept responsibility for a bad financial year rather than blame external forces may see rewards from the stock market, according to recent research from Stanford professor Larissa Tiedens and her former colleagues at the University of Michigan.

CEOs get the PR counsel that they allow -- and a lot of it is bad. Here, then, are seven simple truths about public relations learned the hard way.

Many leaders will be called upon to speak with the media. Are you ready when the lights go on and the microphone is in your face? Here are four secrets to making a compelling case.

Editor's Note: an even better article on this topic is "Secrets of a Novice TV Star" at:
http://www.mbadepot.com/redir.php?ID=1961&file=links

People act on their perception of the facts, and those perceptions lead to certain behaviors. But something can be done about those perceptions and behaviors that leads to achieving your organization's objectives.

The art and science of public relations efforts and activities presented in terms corporate management understands ... price/performance and return-on-investment.

Poor and incomplete news releases and publicity practices, not only make the issuing firm look bad, they insult an editor's intelligence.

Note: Business 2.0 is now part of CNNmoney and some older articles are no longer available