• Brand Journalism

  • CDC Conference on Communications

    CDC Conference on Communications

    What an absolute thrill to be an opening speaker at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media today in Atlanta. Terrific conference and outstanding group of professionals.

  • Actor Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute on "The Office."

    Making News: Core Values and Clear Vision

    When actor Rainn Wilson wanted to find a way to introduce Soul Pancake, his new spiritually based social media Web site, he signed up on Twitter, joined in the discussions and attracted more than a million followers within six months. Today, 20 months later, Wilson has more than 2-million followers on Twitter.

  • Essential Elements of Brand Journalism

    Essential Elements of Brand Journalism

    The new online image and reputation discipline, called Brand Journalism, centers around credible, transparent, legitimate and timely news. It is actual journalism and is not even remotely connected with PR or marketing.

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  • Reputation Management

  • How PR People Rebuff the Media, Risk Brand Image

    How PR People Rebuff the Media, Risk Brand Image

    As co-founder and publisher of BoomerCafé – the online magazine for baby boomers – I was checking Community Coffee’s website the other day for a contact, and what I found instead was a corporate online fortress.

  • Why Social Media Fails for Many Companies and Organizations

    Why Social Media Fails for Many Companies and Organizations

    Social media is all the rage among companies and organizations. But when you stop to examine the return on investment and effectiveness of many social media efforts, it’s often embarrassingly ineffective and trivial at the expense of more important potential ways to communicate to key audiences.

  • TVs on United 903, duct taped in place

    United, The Duct Tape Airline

    I don’t normally write about such things but a couple of recent international flights on United Airlines were troubling, and raised questions in my mind about safety … how much is United cutting back on maintenance and pushing or circumventing the limits of repair standards?

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  • Social Media

  • How Much Can Social Media Be Trusted?

    How Much Can Social Media Be Trusted?

    While researching my latest book – “Making News in the Digital Era” – I conducted interviews with people who run companies that manipulate opinions and perceptions in the world of online social media. It is “the shadowy side” of the online world, as one described it, and it is big business.

  • Technology Tools Driving Online Social Media

    Technology Tools Driving Online Social Media

    A number of very cool things happened the moment I clicked Publish on this blog story, and it was all happening behind the scenes and automatically on my Wordpress blog.

  • The War for the Internet

    The War for the Internet

    A war of sorts is underway to establish control of the Internet. The sides are defined – social media’s power to the people versus pornography supported by big business. Porn’s tactics are from mean streets.

  • More from Social Media
  • Personal Notes

  • Spud McConnell and his wife Mo on WWL

    New Orleans … Best Local Radio in America

    I mourn the loss of quality local radio in most cities around the country. The Washington, DC, area – my hometown – has been reduced to trivial, agenda-driven radio. But … radio in New Orleans, on the other hand, is terrific and best in the land.

  • Underground hike from tram to Concourse C

    Dulles: World’s Worst Airport

    Dulles International Airport, west of Washington, has once again lived up to a reputation that if there is a choice between doing something right – which means convenience for air travelers – or totally and expensively screwing something up, the airport’s federal government decision-makers will always choose the latter.

  • Stephanie Smirnov

    10 Tips for PR Pros Who Want to Blog Personally

    This blog post by Stephanie Smirnov is so good that I asked her permission to repost her words here, and she agreed. Stephanie is President of Devries Public Relations in New York, an active blogger (PRMama.com), one of today’s outstanding leaders in the field of communications and someone I admire.

  • More from Personal Notes
  • Other Recent Articles

  • Hayward sailing into the sunset?

    BP’s Litany of Major PR Gaffes

    Mark Sappenfield, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, has chronicled BP’s series of major public relations mistakes that, as he writes, “have at times cast BP as bumbling, ill-informed, and callous.” Perhaps “incompetent,” as well?

  • (l-r front) Quynh-Luu Ha, of Imperial Sugar's marketing team, and Brand manager Hyuna Lee, (l-r back) The News Group Net's writer Gordon Curry, founding partner Ed Lallo and Imperial newsroom editor Springfield Lewis, celebrate two Bronze Quill awards from IABC Houston for strategic online communication.

    News Group Net Recognized for Strategic Online News

    Developed for Imperial Sugar Company by my firm, The News Group Net, the ISC Newsroom has won an “Award of Excellence” for strategic communication processes and an “Award of Merit” for electronic and digital communication.

  • Louisiana Seafood Industry Turns to News Group Net for Online Crisis Management

    Louisiana Seafood Industry Turns to News Group Net for Online Crisis Management

    The New Orleans-based Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board has chosen News Group Net LLC to manage online news and crisis communications as a result of the devastating impact on the seafood industry caused by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

  • PRSA: Online Newsrooms in the Digital Era

    PRSA: Online Newsrooms in the Digital Era

    Arizona-based public relations professional and writer Ryan Zuk writes for Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) about the essence of the dynamic new real-time news approach taken by Imperial Sugar Company to present news of the sugar industry and broaden its awareness.

  • Black Tide: BP’s Lack of Online Media Management

    Black Tide: BP’s Lack of Online Media Management

    A keynote speaker at last week’s combined IABC/PRSA conference in Salt Lake City said BP (British Petroleum) was doing a good job of managing crisis communications as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf by using online social media. I do not agree.

  • A boat amid the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico

    Crisis Communications Online During an Oil Spill

    Google “BP” or “Transocean” … and the first page of search results, alone, reveals the magnitude of the metastasizing online brand image and reputation crisis facing these two publicly traded companies.

  • Jeff Bridges

    Learning Subtleties of Image Management from Jeff Bridges

    We can all learn something about image and reputation management from the Web site of versatile actor Jeff Bridges. He’s been online at least seven or eight years with the same clever, low-key, personal and interactive online style … and his site ranking stats confirm his popularity.

  • A Case Study of Poor Crisis Management

    A Case Study of Poor Crisis Management

    Toyota has become a case study in how not to do things in a crisis of brand and reputation. Toyota, the world’s biggest car maker, has turned consistently to teams of political lobbyists and attorneys as the company has been ravaged by one safety recall after another to “fix” the company’s problems.

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