Working from home has a lot of benefits, like maintaining a flexible schedule or relaxed dress code. But when work teams have only met through a Zoom meeting or email chain, it can be difficult to build a tight-knit, collaborative, and supportive dynamic. When a company builds a strong, trustworthy team, productivity can skyrocket.  

Here are a few ways you can cultivate those relationships, near or far. 

Check-Ins

Encourage your coworkers to get to know each other past the bare minimum required for work. Check in with each other! Sharing a high and low of your day, what keurig coffee cup you’re sipping, or vacation plans for the weekend instill a sense of community and camaraderie. We work best with those we know– not strangers! 

This can be done in a few different ways. One idea is to set up a “good news” channel on whatever messaging platform your company uses. This can serve as a space for employees to share personal, family, or work...

So you’re thinking about a career in PR? Good choice! PR is such a vast field with many niches that you’ll be sure to find a good fit for your skills and interests. However, it can also be a bit daunting to know just what you’re signing up for. It is important to understand the world of PR before eagerly pressing send on those applications. Here are 5 things you’ll want to know if you are thinking of pursuing a career in PR:

1. Know why you want to work in this field. PR is a competitive industry, meaning you have to be steadfast in your pursuits. No employer expects you to be perfect, but showcase your tenacity in the field. Research companies before you apply for their open positions to prove that while you may not know it all, you’re ready to learn. Figuring out if you align with their company mission, weekly schedule, and other specifics are good ways to find the right fit for your passions and skills. 
2. Know that you probably won’t be...

It’s hard to go anywhere without hearing about the Great Resignation and the impact it has had on dozens of industries. It’s not just the grocery stories and Starbucks taking the hit—professionals from all walks of life are leaving their jobs in droves in search of a better work-life balance. 

In 2020 and 2021, employees got a taste of the simpler life and the benefits it brought, including working from home, avoiding long commutes, and calling into meetings in their shorts and pajama pants. For some, it became a necessity—they had children at home and there was no other form of childcare. Now that the world is getting “back to normal,” many of these employees found that this life suited them much better than the course they had previously pursued. 

Emerging Trends

As remote public relations professionals, we already know about all the perks that working from home brings. Now that more individuals are choosing to work as solo PR...

Congratulations, you’ve landed your public relations client a briefing with an important reporter or industry analyst! The hard part is over, or is it? Not quite. Now you need to make sure your client is adequately prepared for the interview. You can do a prep call, but what really helps executives or other spokespeople get ready for these important meetings is a briefing document, aka a briefing sheet. If several briefings are taking place in a condensed timeframe, such as for a trade show, these sheets might be upsized to a formal briefing book. 

While public relations is a creative field, a briefing document requires quite a bit of preparation as it incorporates all the nuts and bolts to make an interview run smoothly. A calendar invite will take care of simple things like time and date, but more in-depth info is needed  on what the reporter or analyst is interested in. Spokespeople are always on the go and might be reading your briefing document on a plane, train...

Pitching top publications is rarely easy – you not only need good relationships with reporters, you need a good story to tell. The same is true with landing new clients – the story you tell about your company, its strategy and its successes are critically important. The bottom line: Even PR pros who have been at both of these tasks for a long time sometimes need a little help from their friends.

We asked four PR professionals – Patricia Baronowski-Schneider, president and CEO of Pristine Advisers; Joyce Lofstrom, owner and principal at Joyce Lofstrom & Associates; Shirley Johnson, founder and owner of Stage 1 Public Relations, and Ronai Rivera, owner at Anomaly the Agency – for their advice for new public relations professionals, and who they turn to for a new perspective when they need it.  

Remote PR Jobs: If you were starting out in PR today, what are the 2-3 things you wish you knew?  

Lofstrom: I wish I had design skills to use for...

“I want to be quoted as an expert in [insert outlet here].” 

As remote PR professionals, we certainly hear that a lot. While it’s easy to retort, “well, ARE YOU an expert?” it’s important to remember that anyone that wants to be quoted does think they indeed are an expert and have valuable things to say to the audience(s) of their target publications. Oftentimes, however, they want to be quoted simply for the sake of talking about their company and selling more stuff. And that’s the wrong way to approach the problem.

Reporters and editors aren’t fools. They know a simple mention or a quote from a popular blog or publication can help companies get a lot of attention from customers and other media. That’s why they’re discerning about what types of articles they write and the sources they choose. They need to make sure that the topic is of interest to their audience because that means more page views, and of course, more...

Gaining traction with the “media that matters” in the B2B market is not just about pitching and press releases. For companies to meet their marketing and business goals, they need to work with their PR partners to develop a comprehensive strategy that’s built on: 

• Targeted research and relationship building
• Compelling pitches and strategic outreach
• Targeted analysis post-campaign

 We asked three PR professionals with clients in the B2B sector – Dana Sullivan Kilroy, principal at The Ferraro Group, Laura Borgstede, founder and CEO of Calysto Communications, and Shirley Johnson, founder and owner of Stage 1 Public Relations – for their tips and strategies for getting meaningful coverage for their B2B clients.

Remote PR Jobs: What is the best piece of advice you can give a new PR professional when they enter the B2B space? 

Borgstede: Do the research. Learn your industry inside and out. Take the time to read the top industry...

The pandemic has forever changed the way businesses communicate and conduct marketing activities. Across industries, live events have been cancelled or performed remotely, publications have folded and new ones have emerged, and reporters and editors that cover certain industries  are changing roles at a rapid pace. 

Remote PR professionals adjusted to the trials of the work-from-home environment quite easily because most of us were already in this situation permanently. What changed was that our clients were also working from home, as were the reporters, editors and analysts that cover our clients’ industries. Over the past two years, we have become intimately familiar with the day-to-day ongoings inside of people’s homes via Zoom and other video platforms. As we move into 2022, it looks to be more of the same.

Adjusting to the New Normal

As we adjust to this ongoing “new normal,” it is a good time to make some resolutions to ensure every effort...

The past 18 months have been challenging for businesses, but none more so than small and midsize businesses (SMBs). They’ve had to scramble and pivot to stay relevant in a COVID world. Despite the challenges, many have not only survived, but thrived, and are ready to grow. For some, that means launching a PR strategy to help bolster their brand and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

We asked four PR professionals that work with SMBs— Patricia Baronowski-Schneider, president and CEO of Pristine Advisers; Ronai Rivera, owner at Anomaly the Agency; Colin Bennett, founder and owner of C.L. Bennett PR, and Luiza Leal, marketing specialist and professional writer—for tips and strategies for approaching these companies as they prepare to move forward post-COVID.

Listening is Key

Remote PR Jobs: What is the best piece of advice you can give a new PR professional when they are targeting the SMB space?

 Baronowski-Schneider: I believe the best piece of...

 Many industries have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps no more so than retail. In 2020, retailers had to pivot quickly to keep pace with changes in customer behavior as an increasing number of shoppers took advantage of online or “buy online pick up in store” opportunities. Many retailers were wildly successful in their pivots and provide some good strategies that other industries can follow. As we enter the busiest shopping season of the year, here are some “lessons learned” from retail that PR Pros should take note of:

1. How to listen and adapt to your audience’s needs swiftly 

Despite their desire to get out of the house, many consumers are still leery about in-store shopping, and many have turned to online shopping. In fact, according to Digital Commerce 360, one in six dollars in Q3 2021 was spent online. To accommodate this change in customer behavior, many retailers have opted to modify their Black Friday deals...