This is NOT ENTIRELY new to me

In January, I started teaching public relations (again) as an adjunct professor at Fordham University. I was essentially given total academic freedom to create the course that I thought was most appropriate and relevant in these times. I decided to focus on social media and networking.


I admitted to my students when we began the semester that I would be learning along with them. What I bring to the classroom -- and to my consulting business -- is more than 30-years experience of fairly traditional "PR-101" tools and practices of the trade. But blogging, Twitter, Face Book, Meetup and some of the lesser-known social media sites are still in the PR-usage development stage, in my opinion.


Companies hire me and others like me to get them "press," essentially. How I get them coverage and where I get them coverage is a whole new ballgame in the 21st Century. I've always ascribed to the old adage, "there's more than one way to skin the cat!" And these new Internet-based outlets do allow public relations practitioners to get their clients coverage in media that might otherwise have said "no." Now I can post on a journalist's blog! Now I can create a venue and employ viral marketing tools without having to register with the County Health Department as a known carrier!


Getting the word out as far and as wide as possible has always been and remains a challenge. Convincing clients that online media coverage is the route to go -- or at least has value to them -- is an even greater task. Although demographics can not be ignored.

If a company wants to reach my 91-year-old parents then relying solely on the Internet -- or on the Internet, at all -- is a big mistake! If you want to reach my 20-something daughters, newspaper coverage, to a certain extent, is an equally less-effective tool. I was told by one of my young students that even radio listenership is down with his generation. Podcast them. Text them. The "Y" generation doesn't even e-mail much while I'm addicted to it.

"There's too much information out there!" bemoans my wife.

I disagree. I can do a brilliant job of getting media coverage for my clients and I still hear from some people that they knew nothing about it, "there was nothing in the newspaper"

Me: Do you read the newspaper?
Them: "No. I listen to the radio (or) I watch the evening news."
Me: It was promoted and advertised on WXYZ for the last couple of weeks.
Them: I don't listen to that station.
Me: So how did you hear about (fill in the blank)?
Them: I got a flyer.

Ah! Guerrilla Marketing at its best!