PR Edge Blog

Dana Oshiro is a Canadian PR pro, writer and tech blogger living in San Francisco. For the last seven years she has worked in print, broadcast and online media relations. She believes that great stories, regardless of their medium, always rise to the top.
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The head of my old PR Department just emailed me this story about how traditional media has the edge over citizen journalism - written by a traditional journalist. Here’s some info the Pew Foundation’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found after surveying 145 citizen and 218 “legacy” news sites in 46 U.S. markets: Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting stories in the Vancouver Sun, March 18/09: http://www.vancouversun.com/

·         How the maze of social websites reveals ourselves online

·         The average Canadian has seven online profiles, according to Microsoft Canada research

·         Facebook could surpass Google in terms of total worldwide unique visitors to their Web sites by late-2011 or early 2012

I’m a member of our national PR association by choice. Why? Because I look to it (and its members) to understand and appreciate—and be targeted and focused—on both the historical and evolving aspects about practising public relations, globally and locally.

To quote internationally recognized and accomplished Italian PR practitioner, Toni Muzi Falconi, this is in reference to the “adoption of generic PR principles, [ones that are] valid globally only if and where accompanied by specific applications” [i.e., in Canada]. Translation: the success of your local PR program should be “tested” against PR principles accepted and developed around the world.

For the purposes of this post, are the Canadian Public Relations Society’s educational programs (particularly its flagship event, the annual conference) reflecting its PR practitioners’ needs, wants and gaps? Read the rest of this entry »

Before we dive into the Web 2.0 world and sell the virtues of new media to our clients, I suggest we all tread very carefully.

While social media might be “the greatest evolution in the history of public relations,” I’ve seen a lot of time and energy wasted at the expense of proven and traditional PR tools that help build solid relationships and reputations. As PR practitioners I think we need to carefully consider what role new media should play in our PR plans. We also need to consider the impact of social media on security and privacy issues. Security experts warn of the lack of control over the access and flow of information and how surveillance activities are increasingly mining for information that can impact privacy in ways we have yet to understand. This is particularly true for social media tools we might use in our personal life.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blogs. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. SEO. RSS Feeds. These are buzzwords for today’s marketing and communications specialists.

I have many people tell us they want to think “outside of the box”. They read some business article “about this thing called web-two-point-oh, what is it?” They want it because the article says it will make their business grow magically, like Jack’s beans to the sky. And while I’m flattered to have these people approach me for advice, I say to them, “Stop!

“Social Media or web 2.0 will not save your business!” Flat out. Read the rest of this entry »