Publisher's Weekly reports on the letter Random House sent to its employees at year end. Chairman Markus Dohle said that Random House is having a strong fourth quarter, which should make for a good report for fiscal 2010. Random has…

Marketers and PR professionals are facing an explosion in the quantity and diversity of influencers – the people with real and measurable impact on the decisions other people make. Social media has fueled the rise of influencers in all shapes…

It’s crunch time. Christmas is less than two weeks away, and if you’re anything like me, you’re just now realizing how much is left to buy. It’s even worse when there’s someone on your list who’s particularly dodgy to buy…

Being on Facebook is a bit like going to prom. Everyone’s going; no one is quite sure what to do when they get there. And while newsrooms have a huge advantage when it comes to building a Facebook following, very…

Despite students’ wildest hope of avoiding the dreaded essay exam—one that requires either short or long essay answers rather than multiple choice answers—most find themselves taking such an exam, particularly for subjects like history, philosophy, literature, sociology, political science and…

In survey after survey, journalists consistently cite email as their preferred method of contact – provided the email pitch is relevant and targeted to the particular journalist that is. What other steps can you take to keep your email pitch…

Why do so many bloggers write rankings or list posts? Everywhere you look you see top 10 this or 15 ways to do that, the best new this or top tips for that. Why are rankings and list posts…

I’ve been down on news releases before on this blog, but only because I think there are better options for securing publicity. That doesn’t mean you should ditch news releases all together. There are other benefits to writing and distributing…

Somewhere between the (estimated) 10th and 20th Facebook redesigns, I stopped using Facebook Groups. Well, let me clarify: I stopped caring about Groups. I very well could still be a member of the Groups I joined when I first…

In case you missed it last week, Gawker Media (home of Gawker, Deadspin, Jezebel, Lifehacker and Gizmodo) announced they are restructuring their sites effective January 1st, to make them look less like a blog and more like a news magazine. …

Would you build a house without blueprints? No, probably not. That would be a recipe for disaster. The same could be said for writing without an outline. An outline gives your writing structure and helps you organize your thoughts from…

The iPad was supposed to be the demise of the print industry. Magazines and newspapers aren’t going down without a fight. Like technology, the good ones learned to adapt. The better ones learned to anticipate it before it was even…

I can’t pinpoint an exact date or time when I started noticing more and more casual offices popping up, but I do credit it to the emergence of social media. Facebook and Twitter gave companies a more off-the-cusp way to…

While the Top 50 U.S. newspapers seem to be just starting to build up their fan base on Facebook, Twitter has been a priority for a while. If you were to rank the Top 25 U.S. newspapers by Twitter followers,…

While Google PageRank is an accurate gauge of authority on the Web, it doesn’t tell us much about how much people ‘Like’ a newspaper. When it comes to ‘Likes’, Facebook is the authority. It took a little (okay, a lot…

Clicks is one thing, credibility is another. When it comes to online credibility, Google PageRank rules over all. Few metrics illustrate true authority on the Web more than Google’s PageRank. PageRank is the accepted standard for authority on the Web.…

Want to write a better press release? Go to journalism school. If that’s not an option, brush up on the basics of newswriting, such as the five ‘Ws’ and one ‘H’ and the inverted pyramid style. As the journo-nerds who…

I’ve seen a lot of buzz for blogger outreach lately. Next to social media marketing strategy development, it’s the number one social media offering for public relations agencies (and driving much of the increase in PR spending this year). Is…

Speaking at conferences and events is a great way to meet new people, learn new things and see new places. It’s also a great way to generate awareness for you, your company and your products, and establish yourself as an…

What brought you here to read this blog post today? Did you find it through a search engine? Did you click on a link from your Twitter feed? Or are you one of the faithful few who subscribe to the…

It’s no secret that media properties—newspapers, in particular—are facing disruptive challenges today. These include the physical cost of newsprint, the explosion of the Internet for information consumption, falling revenues from classified advertising, the loss of print advertising to the web…

The New York Times reports that the Hollywood Reporter is going to become a weekly magazine. The daily Hollywood Reporter will continue, but the format will change to a PDF file. The Times says the brand needs to completely reinvent…

I’ve used products from Vocus, Cision, BurrellesLuce, PRNewswire, BusinessWire and Marketwire in the past, and they’ve all helped me get my work done faster and deliver stronger results for clients. There are also a wide-range of free products out there…

Katie Williams writes: I would like to  see a post about capitalization, such as when is it proper to capitalize people’s titles, and when would you capitalize the name of a group (i.e. Board of Directors)  - is “Board” always capitalized…

Yankee Magazine celebrates its 75th anniversary with its September/October 2010 issuee. Included in the collector's edition is a special anniversary section featuring "The Ultimate Yankee Quiz" and "75 Things Every New Englander Should Do." Author, educator, and environmentalist Bill McKibben…

You have anywhere from three to ten seconds to capture and hold someone’s attention in a conversation. On Twitter, you have 140 characters. Realistically, you have about one second if you consider the number of Twitter users (100 million+) and…

AOL has launched its 100th Patch site, Morristown Patch. Patch is AOL's hyper-local news service. AOL announced that it plans to expand Patch to more than 500 U.S. neighborhoods in 20 states by the end of 2010. AOL also says…

While there is no shortage of “Best PR Blogs” posts out there, I’ve put together a list of my favorites based on what I’m reading these days. Along the way, I found a few I need to spend…

Bed bugs are a growing problem in Manhattan. Several retailers had to shut in order to remove them. Bergdorf Goodman is even patrolling its stores with beagles. Smart Money reports that Time Warner's headquarters were infested, so they called in…

Gifts & Decorative Accessories and Playthings magazines have merged. The magazines are both published by Sandow Media LLC. Nancy Wolkow, Publisher, Gifts & Decorative Accessories explains the merger in an article published here on giftsanddec.com. So, starting with the September/October…

If you ever sat through Journalism 101, you know all about the Five Ws and one H. For the rest of you, you may find this concept helpful when preparing interview questions or writing factual news stories. This concept…