Lend a Helping Hand...

Public Relations=one of my one true loves. An interesting phenom that MOST people do not entirely understand. It is the job of a PR professional to do all of several things, here are a few:

1- Scan the horizon looking for any potential problems or situations that will affect the organization they represent. And think of a solution before the problem or situation occurs. This does not mean that PR people are psychic or psycho. It means that we have to plan (!!) all the time.

2. It is also the goal of every good PR person to create exposure for their cause. Whether it be a story in the paper, on the radio, or on TV--getting your organizations name in the press is golden! A really great resource i've recently come accross is a website called Help a Reporter Out. This website is devoted to connecting the average person, or PR professional, to reporters all over the world! The reporters submit their queries to Peter Skankman (the mastermind behind HARO), and then he in turn emails the queries to everyone who is registered on his sight! The nerd in me loves getting his emails (2 times a day) filled with different needs from different reporters. I've already responded to a few and gotten feed back from a couple journalists! What I love about this website is this: everyone is an expert of something. Whether you're a mom, pastor, non-profit professional,parent, a married person, a single person, sports enthusiast, doctor, or artist, we all have things that we're knowledgable about, and we ALL most certainly have an opinion.

So. If you'd like to share your wealth of information with the world, do the world a favor and Help a Reporter out!