How much publicity and attention your firm or organization gets this year is largely up to you. You have more control that you might think in whether you get earned media in 2013.

First, start with a plan. Don't make media an afterthought. Sure, some of the best stories just happen, but many stories result from laying out a plan early in the year. What are some of the major announcements that you know will occur? What are some of the events at which your key people will be featured? Start to plug those dates into the calendar.

First impressions are often made long before a face-to-face encounter. Just one negative mews story or a comment or a post or a video can live on in cyberspace forever. Fortunately, there are several options for improving one's online reputation. 

Begin with an online assessment of your organization. See what negative press is actually out there. But, that's just the start.

Managing crisis communications can be a tremendous challenge. In part one of this series, we looked at what you need to do to prepare for a crisis. Our second segment looks at what you need to keep in mind during a crisis.

Consider these Musts when a crisis is underway:

Take action

Implement the crisis communication plan you put in place before the crisis. Make sure key decision makers are alerted and staff are ready to handle whatever comes your way.

You hear a lot of talk about “transparency.”  Government officials are particularly fond of the word.  So are educators and many corporate executives. But what is it, exactly?  And how do you get it?

Well, in general, transparency implies openness, and is strengthened through straightforward communication. It can help approval ratings and brand loyalty. 

Unless you’re the CIA, it’s usually the right thing to do.

Video must be a major component of any public relations campaign. This article sheds light on what's expected to be an explosion in mobile video viewing in 2013.

What's that mean for companies trying to generate earned media coverage in the coming year? Everything. Here are just a few suggestions:

You may be tempted to pitch your latest widget as a great subject for a media interview. It's a new product that will do wonders, you think. How could it not make news?

Stop the presses. Stop thinking about the product and your company. Stop thinking about yourself.

Think, instead, about the viewers, listeners or readers you're trying to reach. What do they think? What do they need? What are they most interested in learning?

Hurricane Sandy is a vivid reminder that a crisis can strike at virtually any time. A crisis communications plan is essential. But what if you don't have one or know where to start?

In this three part series, we'll take a look at what you should do before, during and after a crisis. 

Before the Crisis

• Give some thought to what might go wrong. Sure, a crisis is sudden and you cannot foresee every kind of emergency, but you can certainly brainstorm some of the crisis scenarios you might face.
  
  
• Weave crisis communications into your strategic planning. How will you be positioned to handle a crisis? Determine the key decision makers. Who will talk with the media? What procedures will be followed?
  

What drives news coverage more than anything else? What determines whether a story leads a newscast, gets buried on page 25 or doesn't get covered at all?

The simple answer is news value. How much news value or newsworthiness an issue or event has will determine how much interest the media will pay to it. 

So, how do you determine news value? Another great question. Defining news has always been highly subjective. What's important to one editor may get a yawn from another. What winds up on the front page of one paper may get only a couple of paragraphs in another.

To help you out, here are three characteristics of news that tend to generate more interest on the part of reporters, editors and producers. If your story fits any one of them, you're chances of coverage rise dramatically.

The Mack team is busy unpacking boxes and moving furniture as we settle in at our new office home in Naperville. We're not all that far from our previous office, so we remain ideally located for quick response to clients in the western suburbs as well as the city of Chicago.

Moving gives us with the opportunity to toss old files, notes and folders from successful projects of the past, so that we can focus on the new challenges of today. We continue to develop new and innovative ways to help our clients tell their story, whether through social media, video or more traditional public relations strategies. We're also doing more media training and coaching.

As difficult as any office move can be, we're glad it's almost over, and we look forward to meeting your needs from our new location in the months and years ahead. Let us know how we can help you! Contact us today.

News happens quickly. Gone are the days of the 24 hour news cycle when folks tuned into television news at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. or read their morning newspaper. News is now.

What that means to potential newsmakers - executives, experts, thought leaders and business professionals - is that your response to events almost must be "now." You need to be able to strike while the iron's hot, so to speak.

That's why a statement can be just as effective as a press release, if not moreso, when trying to insert yourself into the mix of fast-breaking news coverage. No need spending hours writing a detailed press release when a few carefully crafted sentences will suffice.