Free Articles

You can access free articles on many PR topics under the main headings on this page. These articles are a great resource for learning more about key areas of public relations practice, and will help you become a more effective practitioner with faster career progression.

New articles are added to this page every two weeks from the articles written in each free Cutting Edge PR e-News newsletter. By subscribing to the newsletter, you can ensure you receive the latest articles as soon as they are published.

PR plans

• Good risk management is a valuable skill for PR projects
• Make the most of SWOT analysis for communication projects
• Use stewardship to safeguard relationships with your long-term stakeholders
• Setting goals and objectives makes your PR planning more effective
• Key insights into implementing PR plans
• New research reveals the most important stakeholder group

PR and the internet

• What 9 internet trends mean for PR
• How to un-google yourself
• Use this raft of social media tools
• Integrating media contact
• "Attention wave" - a new way to approach publicity
• Use caution before committing to Twitter
• Create a better media area in your website to improve media coverage
• People trust social media more than advertising
• Coming to grips with online reputation
• The social media release has arrived
• Email marketing: grow your list and become a trusted sender
• How do you pitch to influential bloggers?
• Ensure your home page tagline tells what you actually do
• Is corporate blogging worthwhile?
• Ensure the about us area of your website is helpful
• How to write for the Internet
• Make it easy for journalists to find information in your website

PR ethics

• Be ethical when promoting 'green' products and services
• Saying sorry is the right thing to communicate
• Ensure you bring ethics into your PR activities

Employee communication

• Good communication can hugely lift employee engagement
• Layoffs cause a double whammy for PR people
• Higher employee satisfaction generates higher profits
• Help to maximize the positive experiences of new employees
• Good employee contact with customers leads to greater profit
• Employee communication needs to be what employees want
• Employee communication policy guidelines
• How to create a better employee brand
• Use PR to help build your employer brand
• PR opportunities are available in the recruitment process
• CEO and senior managers are critical to employee satisfaction
• Employee publications are still wanted
• Framing can help you communicate strong messages
• How communication can improve employee surveys
• You can play a role in improving employee engagement
• How to deal with rumors on the grapevine
• Four steps in persuasive communication at work
• Communicate about pay - you'll have everyone's total attention!
• Employees say this is the essential communication they want
• What you can do to improve managers' communication skills

Communication project management

• How to improve your project communication
• How to get good team results when you are not the boss (part 2)
• How to get good team results when you are not the boss
• Communication effectively at the start of a project
• Poor communication is the reason for most project management failures

Change communication

• Ten ways to get people to change
• Four keys to successful change management
• How a company used internal communication to drive its survival strategy
• Lessons from downsizing programs
• Home truths about successful change communication
• Telling stories pays off for you
• Ensuring your CEO’s effective communication role in leading change
• How you can use better communication to improve operational performance
• Beware of your organization’s Unwritten Ground Rules
• Communicate to change behavior ahead of organizational values and culture
• Good communication is central to successful mergers and acquisitions
• Load the DICE in favor of the communication role in change management

Employee recognition

• 7 mobile apps for recognizing and rewarding employees
• Good recognition technique creates big benefits
• Layoffs cause a double whammy for PR people
• Why do I hear from management when I do something wrong?
• Tips for motivated and effective staff
• How to set up an employee service award program
• Key principles for effective employee recognition activities
• Communicate about employee service awards
• How to give recognition to an employee for work well done
• How you can encourage employee recognition
• What are the current attitudes towards employee recognition where you work?
• Why employee recognition is so important
• How you can communicate to achieve better employee recognition

Crisis communication

• Early warning tools to identify potential issues and crises
• Is your CEO really the best crisis spokesperson?
• Social media becoming vital in crises
• Why blogs are effective for online reputation management
• How to prevent situations from becoming crises
• Latest Crisis Trends
• Saying sorry is the right thing to communicate
• How to get senior management to take notice of your crisis communication plan
• Panic almost never happens in the real world
• Learn the secrets of stakeholder communication during a crisis
• Communicating during a crisis

PR management

• Proving the value of your communication
• How to win top level support for your communication role
• Benefit from participating in office politics
• Learn how to play the political game and become more effective
• Thinking strategically will increase your value
• How can you become more influential in your job?
• Predictions for the coming year
• Are your employees doing their most effective work?
• How to soften the blow for those who miss out on a job application
• Becoming the boss
• How to improve the decision making process
• How to sell your communication plan to senior management
• Putting a face to a name makes a huge motivational difference
• Ways to prove your worth
• Communicating about difficult projects
• Are we communicators or PR practitioners?
• The 5 big organizational questions
• Six questions to ensure staff are on track
• Most employers are communicating more during stressful times
• Can we restore trust?
• Communicating effectively to employees in tough times
• Saying sorry is the right thing to communicate
• Abrupt executive departures cause communication problems
• How to help employees connect strategy with their daily activities
• Show how communication improves employee and customer satisfaction
• Better than brainstorming ideas
• How to deal with difficult people issues
• What you can do about poor management communication
• How to create better communication value for business units
• How to fix a bad decision
• What’s the ideal number of people in a work team or committee?
• Learn how you can successfully confront others
• Managing the performance of PR staff
• The wider leadership role of the effective public relations manager
• How to boost your PR career by successfully managing your boss
• Strengthen your PR management skills

Issues Management

• Early warning tools to identify potential issues and crises
• Communicating about difficult projects

Sponsorship

• Think of what you can offer sponsors rather than what you want from them
• Attract better sponsorship proposals
• How you can use leverage to increase your sponsorship value
• Many benefits you can offer sponsors
• How you can calculate the sponsorship fee for an event
• What to do when meeting with a potential sponsor for the first time
• Negotiating sponsorship from a weak position
• Do your homework before approaching sponsors!
• When 'sponsorship' isn't sponsorship at all

Media relations

• Don't forget to include your URL with your media release
• Persuasive email pitching to journalists
• How to improve headlines in minutes
• 10 ways to ensure an effective news release
• 8 ways to deflect tough interview questions
• When do you offer an exclusive story to a journalist?
• Avoid these 10 big mistakes with media releases
• Tips on writing an engaging media release
• 5 media trends to watch for
• 5 media relations trends
• Pitching to media - should we call to follow up?
• "Attention wave" - a new way to approach publicity
• Tip sheets are great for creating publicity
• Create a better media area in your website to improve media coverage
• The key question to ask a reporter BEFORE the interview
• Be ethical when promoting 'green' products and services
• The words that spell succes for your media release
• Build strategic messages into media interviews
• Creating more ideas for publicity campaigns
• Use photographs to interest media in your news angle
• Always try to make the journalist’s job easier
• What can you do with un-newsworthy material?
• Have we reached celebrity saturation?
• Use the power of positive language in your communication
• Should you use media releases?
• Make it easy for journalists to find information in your website
• Your media relations should have a strategic purpose

Event Management

• Getting more value from an event

Corporate reputation and stakeholder relations

• Building trust through subtle clues
• Why trust is really important to you
• Why blogs are effective for online reputation management
• How to determine the value of stakeholders
• Stakeholder relations management is a key skill
• Coming to grips with online reputation
• Why a good corporate reputation is important to your organization

Core PR skills

• An easy formula for unlocking the power of stories
• Ask the right questions for best solutions
• Past or future - which is more persuasive?
• This simple secret will win you better cooperation from others
• How you can be more productive immediately
• 11 ways to protect your writing from being mutilated
• What sort of power do you have at work?
• A creative approach to “What do you do?”
• Tips for writing top email subject lines
• The clever way to start a new job
• How to 'sell' creative ideas to decision makers
• Some smart ways to create more productive meetings
• Stimulate your creative thinking
• Improve your marketing text - get specific
• A "slicing technique" that can improve the first 50 words of your writing
• Seven tips to improve your text
• Elevator pitch
• Carefully crafted email subject lines are vital for effective communication
• Begin networking immediately when you are new to a job
• Fewer words on a Web page is smarter
• Setting PR objectives is even more important now
• The big myth about nonverbal communication
• Mirroring another person's body language builds rapport
• Audience segmentation is important for better communication
• How to win over people to your point of view
• Sleep on it to enhance creativity
• Increasing your willpower can increase your success
• Asking key questions will improve the outcomes from your relationships
• Networking internally will boost your career
• How to speed up approvals of your draft material
• How to avoid causing tantrums when you change someone's text
• Adept networking boosts your PR career
• Use positive emotions to support your case
• Widows don't offend
• Bringing a headline to a full stop
• Getting people to like you makes communication more effective
• People repay your favors to them
• People follow the lead of others they respect
• People back their clear commitments
• Get expert support for your case
• People want more of what they can't get
• Is it worthwhile to print text on a tinted background?
• How effective is printing colored text on white paper?
• Are colored headlines effective?
• Headlines that work best
• How you can change typeface to dramatically improve results
• Understand how you can double the effectiveness of your publications in one simple move!
• Discover the impact of reverse type on reader comprehension
• The impact of using italics in body type
• Using ragged right, left or justified typesetting

Marketing communication

• Add a 'P.S.' for more impact
• People are skeptical of corporate environmental claims
• Tips for writing top email subject lines
• Using direct mail to reach senior executives
• Be ethical when promoting 'green' products and services
• Celebrities still sell
• Good employee contact with customers leads to greater profit
• How to evaluate copwriters and their material
• Use the power of testimonials in your marketing communication
• Listen to dissatisfied customers before they damage your reputation and business
• How credible are different sources of information?
• How easy is it to start a blog?
• Opportunities for PR people in the digital revolution
• Marketing communication should be strategically based
• How to communicate value to customers
• Why 'tryvertising' is catching on

Communication measurement

• The myth of relationship building as the key measure of PR
• PR multipliers are fake measures
• Who is the best source of information for your employees?
• Make the most of your most important messages
• Some quick tests to check the effectiveness of your messaging
• Why AVEs are a fatally flawed measure of PR effectiveness
• How communication can improve employee surveys

Speeches and presentation

• Speeches need to be promoted
• Offer genuine value when public speaking
• Handle public speaking opportunities strategically
• Use imagery to make speeches stronger
• Why it's important to introduce a speaker well
• Take account of people's reticular activating system to liven your presentations

Social Media

• How to create an editorial calendar for your blog
• Don't forget to include your URL with your media release
• 12 free social media tools to make your life easier
• 12 really useful digital tools for PR
• What's happening in social media
• Adopting a social media mindset
• 5 reasons to add images to social media
• Guide to infographics: 3 essential tips for creating them
• How to use social media to build a better organization
• 8 social media trends for 2012
• Social media becoming vital in crises
• Six rules for successfully engaging in social media for marketing communication
• 10 ways to make your Facebook landing page dynamic
• Why blogs are effective for online reputation management

Investor relations

• Higher employee satisfaction generates higher profits

Visual commmunication

• Get the picture?
• 17 tips for better visual communication
• Three is a powerful number
• How you can use photographs to create greater impact