Media Relations by Jerry Silfwer

The Four Seasons Total Landscaping press con­fer­ence is a slice of mod­ern PR his­tory — just as it could’ve been anoth­er epis­ode of the com­edy show, Veep.

Let’s dis­cuss pub­lic rela­tions vs pub­li­city. The terms pub­lic rela­tions and pub­li­city are often used inter­change­ably. But this is wrong! PR is not publicity.

Identify a Stupid Majority and join forces with the oppos­ing Smart Minority to bring the giants down. It might just become the finest PR work of your career.

The annoy­ing cor­por­ate habit of mind­lessly pro­mot­ing lousy press releases with unclear call-to-actions. Just stop, please.

Many lead­ers, politi­cians, and com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als invest in media train­ing. Still, many media train­ing mis­takes are being made over and over.

If con­tro­versy is a power­ful PR strategy, then what’s the catch? Because there must be a catch, right? It’s all about get­ting the PR bal­ance just right.

Ivy Lee is known for issu­ing the first press release. His innov­at­ive PR and cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions approaches have had a last­ing impact on the industry.

Download the clas­sic press release tem­plate here (zip bundle with Microsoft Word and Apple Pages included).