Public Relations Episodes

The thought of a call from the media, or (yikes!) a request for an interview is the stuff of nightmares for many business owners and executives. But it’s also par for the course if you want to stay ahead of the story, put out the right message and stay transparent and relevant to your audience. If you want to run and hide when you hear a reporter is on the line, or avoid speaking in public because it makes you uncomfortable, you need to take a step back and listen in to this episode of the Conf...

Back in the day, you relied on personal relationships when deciding whether to do business with someone. While that’s still the case in a lot of circles, an even more popular method is through our good friend Google. I don’t know about you, but I often Google the name of someone who reaches out to me for business -- for a media interview or for help in their business. I want to know who I’m dealing with before I agree to do any work with or for someone. And I love that it’s so easy to find the i...

As many as 90% of people check out reviews on social media and business or industry websites before buying. That means your reviews matter. But what matters even more nowadays is how you respond to reviews your customers leave online. Unfortunately, you don’t have time to manage your reviews all day long. And you shouldn’t. What you should do, however, is make sure that you respond to every single review you receive--good or bad. In fact, it’s even more important to respond to bad reviews, publi...

I spent a good part of my career working with the media in my role as a public affairs officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and my time as the head of communications for the cruise line industry outside of Washington D.C. The journalists I met had a passion for finding the story and making sure the public heard it. One of the journalists I encountered during my career was Jeanne Meserve, an anchor and correspondent for CNN and ABC News and winner of two Emmy Awards, two CN...

Major League Baseball hits a home run when it comes to social media strategy. But you don’t have to be a multi-billion dollar enterprise to get noticed and stay relevant. By following the winning tactics teams use to engage their fans, you’ll soon be hitting social media home runs with the big leagues. That doesn’t mean you need to be on all the social platforms; it just means that you need to find which platforms your people are on, know what’s going to stop their scroll and then give them the ...

Do you know the power of a hashtag? (Do you even know what a hashtag is?) I get asked about hashtags a lot in my business, and it’s not uncommon to feel like a #dinosaur. Heck, I question myself every time I use a hashtag--still. There’s no shame in not knowing what a hashtag is or how to use it. There really aren’t any true tutorials on it and for us Gen-Xers and older, it’s just the pound symbol on the dial pad of the phone you grew up with. But for those of us who use social media on a regula...

When you’re in the public eye, be ready for scrutiny. Even if you’re not in the public eye, your audience is looking for transparency both online and offline. Try to hide and you’re going to get some backlash--especially in the face of a crisis. This week on the Confident Communications podcast, we’re ripping from the headlines two fallouts from two executives’ mistakes. One flat-out lied and bamboozled the public and investors out of millions (a billion!). The other thought that denial and hidi...

For most people, your voice is simply the tool you use to communicate. But for Gina Razón, this week’s guest on the Confident Communications podcast, the voice is much more than that. And when you don’t use your breath properly, your voice (and your credibility) can suffer. A former opera singer and current public speaker and voice coach, Gina shares with us why the voice is a tattletale for your confidence and exactly what speakers do when they’re not as confident or as prepared as they’d like...

Did you watch the 2019 Oscar telecast? I did - that's why I’m looking at how the stars’ publicists did on the most important night in Hollywood. It was the first time in the history of the broadcast that the program went hostless. Join me and my long-term friend and fellow pop culture enthusiast Mary Mitschow as we each chose our top three hits and misses by both stars and publicists on Oscar night and riffed on our take. We’re digging into whether the stars’ publicists did a good job of promo...

We’re in a whole new age when it comes to making personal announcements. No matter what the announcement is, the bigger the name, the bigger the story. When Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos announced their divorce on January 9, they chose only one public communication channel - Twitter. Twitter posts for high-profile news announcements have taken the place of the tried and true press release, and Facebook posts have taken the place of phone calls for the general public’s announcements. Both of these ha...

Every business needs a foundation to communicate with its employees, which is why I brought Victoria Dew of Dewpoint Communications to talk about this critical piece of the communication puzzle. Victoria’s unique perspective as a former entertainment industry professional and in-house communication professional both in the U.S. and overseas helps to bring a new voice to the creativity and transparency that goes into communicating with employees. In this episode, we talk human-centric business, c...

Communication fails are a starting point in talking about the importance of having a sound communication skill set. And there were a lot of them in 2018. It helps to know what mistakes look like so you can avoid them, and even learn how to come back from them effectively. Last week, I talked about the top communications wins in 2018; in this week’s episode of the Confident Communications Podcast, we’re looking at the flubs. From mistweets to apologies gone wrong, from insensitivity to public saf...

With the year coming to an end, this week's episode delves into ten communication wins of the year by the people, politicians, brands, and beer drinkers who made headlines and then made hay from an earlier challenge they faced at some point in 2018. The stories on the list range from publicity stunts to political maneuvers that captured the public's attention over the past year. From #10 to #1, you will hear what made the story memorable and what was the communication strategy behind it landing...

With our daily communications frequently moving to the online world, we have forgotten some of the nuances of face to face interaction. Improving our conversation skills, both as a speaker and a listener, allows us to sharpen our message and get a better understanding from those we communicate with. This episode features a recent NY Times article about NPR's Terry Gross and the art of a good conversation. In this episode, you’ll learn: The only icebreaker you'll ever need. How to prepare for...

Interviews don’t have to be stressful. Chances are you’ve been in many job interviews over the course of your career, and maybe even interviewed some candidates for your organization. Ellen Mahoney, chief human resources officer of Harvard Business School, has more than 30 years of experience interviewing applicants from a wide background, and she’s seen it all. Ellen dives into interview secrets from the interviewer’s perspective so you can nail your next interview--whether you’re looking for...

If you want to project confidence and competence, you need to eliminate filler words from your vocabulary. Filler words. They’re a pesky tic that everyone uses. But if overused, filler words can undermine the potential for your success. We use them to take up space in a conversation, give us time to think up a response or simply because it’s a habit we’re not even aware of. In this episode, I’m sharing the different types of filler words and how you can (and should) eliminate them from your voca...

No matter your age or professional level, you need a guide to communication so you can be seen, heard and relevant. Today’s episode gives you the “tells.” Do you know that you can tell how old someone is just by how they communicate? It’s true, and many marketers and other professionals are savvy at using this information to determine whether you’re a good fit for a product or even a job. In this first episode of the podcast, I’m sharing my background in communication and how I used my status ...