Public Archives - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

Public Relations’ Bad PR

When placing stories in the media, you want to highlight you product or service, but you also have an equally important second objective. You want to educate. I don’t think that I can emphasize this point strongly enough. Public Relations has bad PR. It is known for its fluff and hype, for the sleight-of-hand work, and, whereas, all of that exists, the glitter and flash isn’t what makes for an effective campaign. What makes media placement effective is that it tells a story, it educates, it gives the public information on a particular topic or field that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

We represented a physician who was working on a new cancer drug and was in the midst of clinical tests. The first series had been quite promising. He was looking for patients with a certain type of cancer who were interested in participating in the study. He received hundreds of calls after a local TV interview ran, from people wanting to find out more information. These people would have never been aware of the study, and their opportunity to participate in it, if it had not been for the interview they saw. How about a couple of examples that are not quite so serious?

A skin care expert who has created her own make-up line, appeared on a TV segment teaching consumers how to buy cosmetics for less. The piece explained how to read and understand labels and how to shop for quality, yet inexpensive products. She was presented as an expert, her products were highlighted, and the public learned new information.

The President and CEO of an Internet company who specialized in B to B solutions, was interviewed in a national publication on the changing face of the Internet. He was able to discuss his company and the solutions it offered, establish himself as an expert in his field, and educate the public.

All of these pieces highlighted and focused on the client’s company, but they also educated. By watching the programs or reading the articles, the public learned new information. The pieces were informative and (hopefully) added to the quality of the viewers’ or readers’ lives. Done correctly, it educates, instructs, entertains, and whets the public’s appetite to know more. On the marketing end, it also stimulates your target audience to make an appointment, purchase a product, or to visit a store. But the bottom line comes down to presenting yourself as an expert, an educator, as someone whom both the media and the public turn to for information and advice, you are communicating with and educating the public.

Culture Shock in Public Restrooms – Oaxaca, Mexico

Oaxaca is a haven in many rights… beautiful valleys, delicious food, exciting tours, ancient Zapotec ruins, colorful traditions and warm, friendly people… but eventually you’re gonna need to go to the bathroom!

Now if you are in places that cater to international tourism, there is no culture shock involved when you 1 and 2. You go to the bathroom like you would in any other place in the states, the only difference being the little figures usually used to distinguish between the men’s room and the ladies room are a sombrero and a traditional dress, (not always in that order). Yet, if you’re in Oaxaca, then you are most likely looking to experience the real Mexico. If it weren’t so, you would go to a place like Cancun or Acapulco where everyone speaks English and you can pay in dollars. But if you’re going to be here in Oaxaca, you gotta accept the “trabas“, (the obstacles), here. Let me tell you a little story:

A few years ago I was sitting in the ADO bus station in Oaxaca on my way to the airport in Mexico City where I needed to catch a flight to Miami to visit my dad. (Flying out of Mexico city instead of flying out of Oaxaca is a good idea if you’re on a budget and want to save money.) Anyways… I was sitting in the terminal munching on a Twix bar, when I saw a tall, thin, blond-haired woman rush by me towards the bathrooms – obviously in a hurry to get there. Completely blowing off the woman who was sitting behind a desk in front of the bathrooms, she hurried into the women’s room. Caught off guard, the short, chubby, dark complexioned woman behind the desk stood up and yelled out to the foreigner, “Señorita! Señorita! SEÑOOORRRIIITTTAAA!!!!”

Half scared out of her wits, the blond haired woman peeked her head out of the bathroom door, but before she could say anything, the attendant firmly said, “5 pesos por favor!”. Stepping completely out of the bathroom now, the foreign woman approached the desk where the attendant then sat down and pointed to a sign over her right shoulder that said, in English, “YOU MUST PAY 5 PESOS TO USE THESE FACILITIES”. Reading that sign, obviously not seen due to the urgency of the situation, the foreign woman got angry, she said something not very complimentary to the bathroom attendant and went back to her seat in the terminal. I watched her as she threw herself into her chair and started to mumble, with tight lips, to a gentleman next to her that could have been her brother because he looked like the male version of her.

I just sat observing the spectacle because I had forgotten to bring a book or to buy a magazine and was horribly bored. After about 20 grueling minutes where I could observe the foreign lady’s face getting progressively redder and redder, she stood up, unwillingly, and stomped towards the bathroom. Arriving at the attendant’s desk where the attendant, obviously privy to the situation the foreign woman was in, cracked a half smile triumphantly as she slammed down the 5 pesos on the desk and stormed in the bathroom without even receiving the toilet paper that the attendant hands out at the door.

I just kind of shook my head and acknowledged the difficulties that many foreigners encounter when they come and partake in the Mexican culture for a while. I know that it’s not always easy but you CANNOT come down here and be inflexible in situations like this. Patience, understanding and then more patience is needed if you want to enjoy Oaxaca or Mexico in general. You must accept these cultural differences if you want to enjoy the culture at all and believe me, the pros outweigh the cons 100 to 1. Now let me make you privy to other “inconsistencies” when going to the bathroom in Oaxaca just to save you the trauma:

Aside from the fact that you might have to pay between 2 to 5 pesos for entrance into a “public” bathroom, you may also be given a moderate quantity of toilet paper as you enter because there are no toilet paper rolls in the stalls themselves, in most cases. Now let me tell you, they do this to save money, so sometimes they give you a very, very small quantity of toilet paper that is of no real help if Montezuma is paying you a visit. So please learn from my not-so-pleasant experiences… Always take extra toilet paper with you wherever you go. You might notice that many bus and taxi drivers in Oaxaca have toilet paper nudged between the dashboard and the windshield. Well… this is why!

Now upon entering a bathroom stall and closing the door behind you, (that may or may not have a lock), you may notice that there isn’t a bathroom seat. That’s right! You gonna have to sit directly on the porcelain if you’re gonna sit at all. If you do, you have to hurry up because the edge of the toilet is going to cut off your circulation pretty fast which makes it hard to walk when you finish, believe me. Ohhhh… and when you do finish and try to flush the bowl, there may not be any water. In these cases, the bathroom attendants leave buckets outside the stalls and provide a place for you to dip your bucket in and get water to dump into the toilet.

When you are finished using the necessities and go to wash your hands and… oooopppssss…. forgot… no water! That’s when you get the “jicara“, (plastic bowl), and go back to where you got the water to dump into the toilet. Fill your jicara and go back to the sink and wash your hands the old fashion way.

Now I don’t want to scare you. If you are just coming to Oaxaca to tourist around for a week or two, you won’t come across too much of this. But if you are coming down for more than a month or to live, like I did, you will definitely have to deal with this at one point or another. After a while, believe it or not, it all becomes quite natural. So natural in fact that when I do go back to the states, I’m sure I`ll be sitting on the porcelain, leaving 5 pesos outside the bathroom door, washing my hands with a bowl of water and filling up my bucket in the shower:)

Hope you enjoyed this article. Keep an eye out for more that are sure to come.

See you next write!

Ideas and Information to Boost Public Relation Career

The continuous existence and growth of any concern depends on the skills of its PR department. Public Relation is an art which is vital for the survival of any profit making business be it an individual or an organization, and it is for this reason a good PR person is so much sought after and so much in demand. The job of the PR department is to let everybody who matters for the growth and prosperity of the organization know about the available products and services in the best possible manner and to provide the maximum exposure to increase the clientele and as a result the profitability.

Public Relation is an acquired rather than an inborn skill. A good PR person is one who has learnt it all the hard way through proper training and plenty of in service experience. It is for this reason, students who want to make their living in the Public Relation sector and experienced professionals who want to hone their skills undergo various Advertising and Public Relation Courses so that they can give a better performance in the long run. Good PR is important because it

· Emphatically announce the presence of specific products and services.

· Gives the maximum possible exposure and helps in the establishment of brand names.

· It cuts out the burgeoning competition and boost business revenue.

· Increases the credibility of the business house and establish customer loyalties.

The main function of the PR person is to create an interest among the target populace regarding the existence of a particular name. This can be done through various events or campaigns which are both fun and informational. The idea is to create a buzzword without being too obvious about the marketing part of the business which may otherwise make the customers cry off and shun the campaigns as nothing but just another publicity gimmick for getting the products sold. Advertising and Public Relation Courses make an individual a master in this extremely important marketing art, they learn the subtle methodologies and techniques that comprise a good Public Relation management. A professionally qualified and rightly trained PR personnel is a great asset for any business house, they can contribute greatly not only to the progress and growth prospect of their respective organizations but also take themselves to the next level on the road to individual success. The Advertising and Public Relation Courses greatly help in that arena.

Many famous and lesser known institutes offer a variety of PR Courses in India, some of the most famous and established names in Public Relation training are SIMC or the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication located at Pune, Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism situated at Bhopal, IIMC or the Indian Institute of Mass Communication located in New Delhi,The Delhi School of Communication (DSC) in New Delhi, School of Broadcasting and Communication present at Mumbai and finally the Xavier Institute of Communication or the XIC also in Mumbai. The PR Courses in India are at par with the best in the world and utilize the latest theories and most effective techniques that prepare the students for the global market.

Presentation Skills & Public Speaking – 10 Tips to How to Design & Prepare for a Presentation

Top 10 Tips to help you Plan and Design and Prepare for your Presentation

Next time you are faced with the daunting prospect of having to write a presentation, try out these tips from Skillstudio and you’ll be surprised at just how effective they can be at helping to design and prepare for a presentation.

Prepare Prepare Prepare – The more time you spend preparing your presentation beforehand the more confident you will be on the day.
Get to know your audience. Put yourself in their shoes. What’s in it for them? What understanding do they currently have? Do they want a detail or strategic level talk from you?
What’s the one key goal you want to achieve by giving this presentation? Make sure that this is clear to your audience at the beginning and end of the presentation.
Split your presentation into a beginning a middle and an end. Use the middle section to develop your ideas.
Remember the power of three. Wherever possible think of things in threes. eg three key points to make at the beginining, three key points to develop further in the middle and three key points to make at the end. Your middle can further expand on the three points with three additional points each. etc
Brainstorm the likely questions you will be asked by your audience. Prepare answers using the Power of three.
Try using a mind map to help you organise your ideas into logical chunks. The clearer your thinking is the easier it should be to understand when you are presenting.
Avoid the trap of preparing for your presentation at the last possible minute. It will only mean you lose a night’s sleep – on the night before you have to present!
Lead your audience through your presentation using sign-posting. Recap on what you’ve just covered and then use rhetorical questions to move onto the next section. Always summarise your main points just prior to the end of your presentation.
Plan to end your presentation with a call to action, a request for a decision to be made, or whatever you believe is the most appropriate means to achieve your overall goal.

5 Public Relations Tips For Home-Based Business Owners

No matter what you read in textbooks, online or hear from anyone else, you need to realise that traditional mainstream media advertising doesn’t work. I mean, it can work if you have millions of dollars worth of advertising budget, but for most businesses it is not an effective tool.

Public relations techniques become the best option for home-based business owners, especially when you consider the possibilities presented from using both online and offline techniques.

The purpose of this article is to share with home-based business owners 5 tips that you can utilise relatively quickly.

Learn to write a basic press release- The press release follows a basic template that almost any business owner will be able to fulfill. You need to learn to write a basic press release so that every time your business does something newsworthy you can send off a press release to try and get some media coverage.

Start a blog and utilise social media- I definitely think that you cannot overlook mainstream media coverage but you should also start your own blog, set up a Facebook page and set up a Twitter account so you can reach out to your audience directly without having to worry about your message being mediated.

Join an online networking forum- You should also look at joining an online networking forum. There are plenty of online groups that you can join and there is bound to be one that is related to you your niche. You should join one or more of these forums in order to build your reputation as a respectable business owner.

Referral marketing is the best way to grow your business- Going out and getting a sale can be tough. It is much better to make referral marketing a large part of your business plan. You need to aim to get as much as possible of your business through referrals. My personal preference would be for 100% of business through referrals.

Credibility is more important than visibility- As a home-based business owner credibility is much more important than visibility. It is now much more about what you say and what others say about you then how many times people see your name.

The old rules of advertising no longer apply. You need to make sure that you utilise the PR tips that I mentioned above so that you can grow your business effectively in this new economy. Otherwise you will find that you are doomed to failure.