Deirdre Breakenridge

There’s a little song I learned back in Girl Scouts (yes, I was a girl scout… rocked the cookie sales, horrid when it came to crafts!). Make new friends, but keep the old. One is sliver and the other gold.

Here’s a special video announcement on #Chatmixer that will take place on Tuesday, March 9th at 8:00 p.m. EST. Looking forward to chatting with all of the different Twitter chat communities!

Recently, the FTC revised its guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. Effective on December 1, 2009, bloggers are required to disclose any material connections to brands in the content that they publish. Until today, there was no simple disclosure solution. DigComm (short for the Digital Communications Group), a company that specializes in development of digital communications tools for PR and social media agencies, has developed Cmp.ly, which could be an extremely valuable and easy solution for bloggers, marketers and content providers moving forward.

I posted an article on Twitter the other day about bloggers accepting gifts and how there was controversy over the topic. The article in PR Week focused on how paid blogger coverage received mixed reviews. This question has been weighing on my mind so I decided to ask a few PR professionals their opinions on the subject. I found out, as I spoke with these communications people, it’s a split decision as to whether bloggers receiving gifts should be and accepted practice. Just to preface the opinions written on this page, the folks commenting are not aware of any formal Code of Ethics in the blogosphere that includes the practice of gift giving to bloggers.

I’m a PR person, so I can admit that media relations was always a challenge for PR professionals.  With clients demanding to be placed in top tier publications and the amount of legwork that it takes to learn about the journalists on your media list, the media relations process often skipped very important steps just [...]

My blog post was inspired by Kami Huyse’s post “When a Typo is the Difference between Life and Death.” Kami discussed how a simple typo resulted in a young man being hospitalized with a bullet in his liver. I commented on her blog admitting that I really didn’t think about the serious ramifications of a typo outside of my field. In healthcare, law enforcement and many other industries a typo means more than just your image or reputation. It could be someone’s future or their life.

When it comes to internal company blogs, in my experience, the communications department is usually onboard and the executives come to realize that they have to take the time to blog and write out their thoughts.  They know it’s important to communicate information in their own voice about company initiatives in order to keep everyone [...]

In my last post, I discussed that companies usually engage in social media with their stakeholders in a two ways.  The first is through blogger relations and the second is through corporate blogging, which is another area that still has many of our clients asking questions.  Hopefully this post will shed some light on what [...]