By Carl Carter, APR When I was just starting my career, I knew a guy who was such a devout Christian he would read his Bible and “share his faith” regularly on company time. After several warnings, he got fired, and he declared himself a martyr who was “fired for being a Christian.” He wasn’t. […]
Are you insulting people who can help you succeed?
This definition of public relations is written on the back of my business card: “Public relations is the management function that identifies, establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.” Most of us would rather have a larger base of customers than […]
How to use the new techie toys to enhance your company’s image
Way back in the 1990s, when my firm was still in the business of developing web sites, an attorney was setting forth his criteria: “I want some cool shit.” By this, he meant that he wanted things moving around on his site. Animated gifs were appearing all over the Internet, along with Macromedia’s Shockwave, which […]
Loving Facebook Live and Periscope? Why free, easy features may be poison for your brand
By Carl Carter, APR, AMM This summer’s shiny new toy seems to be streaming video. Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook’s Live video have made it easy for anybody to broadcast whatever they’re doing live – and to get it in social media feeds where a lot of people will see it. Almost overnight, we all started […]
What do we mean by “professionalism,” anyway?
I’ve seen a flurry of social media references to “professionalism” lately, but little guidance as to what that entails. The usual focus is to point out “unprofessional” behavior. That may tell us how not to act, but it doesn’t teach us much about how to build a professional image. I’m no authority on this subject, […]
The real price of freebies: Your name and brand
By Carl Carter, APR, AMM If you’ve ever had your identity stolen, you know what a nightmare it can be. When it happened to me a few years back, somebody was opening accounts in my name, then defaulting on them. To make sure I didn’t find out, they changed my legal address from Alabama to […]