Interesting discussion on Do-It-Yourself (DIY) PR and another one following up this story on how to fix PR.

1. DIY PR - Guy Kawasaki: My buddy, Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, had a strong reaction to last week’s post about PR by Marge Zable Fisher. So much so that he penned an alternate solution to the challenge of a good client-agency relationship: Don’t hire an agency and do it yourself.

2.Why PR Doesn’t Work and How to Fix It- Brian Solis: Let’s just hang up our hat trying to refine our client services or management brown-nosing, as we’ve finally figured out how to strip PR down to such a basic sense of parity, that if we could get these top 10 questions answered or figured out, that we could solve the industry-wide plague of bad PR.

PR for PR People

1.Realise this as your number one priority…just because you show up to work and do your thing doesn’t mean you kick ass in anything other than maybe, just maybe, deserving to keep your job.

2. If you expect to represent anything, whether in an agency or in a company, spend a significant portion of your time figuring out why it matters to people - on your own time. This is the difference between PR and good PR.

3. Figure out who your customers are and where they go for their information. This forces PR to mirror sales strategies in order to reach the people that could benefit from said product/service. Different people go to different places for information. First determine where you want to be and then work backwards from there.

4. Read the blogs, magazines, newspapers, forums, newsletters, etc., that reach them and understand how to translate what you do in a way that matters to them. This is the only way to be successful in running PR in the long tail. People within your target markets share experiences, pains, and wants that are unique to each group. By reading, you’re participating. And by participating, you’re better staged to engage more effectively than the rest of the flacks.

More on Brian Solis’ blog…