Month: March 2013

I see London, I see France … I see PR potential in see-through yoga pants!

Lululemon’s popular athletic apparel line made headlines last week when the brand’s overly sheer fabric, known as Luon, bit them in the behind. Upon bending over, some of Lululemon’s loyalists realized they were baring it all. This led to a recall of nearly 17 percent of the brand’s beloved yoga pants, which is expected to cost the company about $60 million in lost revenue this year…. Read more »

Seeing Red on Boston’s Red Line: Social Media PR Combats Proposition 8

    I rode the Red Line into our Boston office yesterday morning and was greeted as usual with the glow of smart phones in the hands of commuters. The difference this time was the repeated flicker of red squares skimming past on people’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds. I pulled out my own phone to check up on the club I hadn’t been invited to.  As a… Read more »

Social Media Titans & The Influence of Benevolence

How do the heaving-hitting influencers do it? How do the Social Media Elite continue to amass loyal followers, fans and fanatics willing to fan the flames of their content marketing efforts? Take Chris Brogan, for example. Here’s a guy who has more Twitter followers than most folks have hair follicles, and his name is ubiquitously known among the social set. He’s written best-selling books, consulted to… Read more »

5 Signs PR is Not For You

Our PR agency is celebrating its 10th anniversary next week – more on that topic later – and I’ve been thinking about the ups and downs of running our business since we hung a shingle in 2003. While we’re incredibly fortunate to employ some of the very best public relations and social media experts anywhere, over the years we’ve had a number of staff who simply… Read more »

PR Agency Matter Communications Launches Boston Office

LunchSpotting Event To Debut New Innovation District Location Newburyport, Mass. – March 25, 2013 – Matter Communications, a full-service public relations and social media agency specializing in technology and consumer markets, announced today an additional office location in Boston’s Innovation District, a hotbed of activity for promising tech startups. In conjunction with the launch of its new office at Space with a Soul, 281 Summer Street… Read more »

Don’t Scare Me, Google

  The demise of Google Reader caused some angst recently, but not for me.  I wasn’t a user of the service, so it got a shrug and I moved on.  However, the rumor that Google Alerts has been acting up – and that this might be a harbinger that the service is next on the chopping block – is a whole different kettle of fish. In… Read more »

“So you have a PR degree…”

  Like many PR industry folks, I was a communications major in college (go Boston U!).  Like many college grads, when the Dean handed me that diploma, I felt powerful, knowledgeable; I was a master of the PR world!  My brain was bursting with PR jargon and corporate case studies.  The AP Stylebook practically streamed through my typing fingers; I knew it all!  And then I… Read more »

All the Self-Promotion That's Fit to Print

Ever been tempted to pay for a PR placement? You pitch the perfect story and the editor just won’t bite.  You go back a second time with no luck, so you think to yourself: “Man, I wish I could pay to slip this story in. The readers will find it valuable.” Unfortunately, you can’t do that (at ethical pubs) so you go back to the drawing… Read more »

Do The Irish Celebrate St. Joseph’s Day?

Today, St. Joseph’s Day, the principal feast day of St. Joseph in the Roman Catholic Church, will be celebrated with revelry worldwide. Cities will close their streets for parades, celebrations will dominate the news headlines, and red and white (the colors of the day) will be worn by friends and family in every direction. Today ends a short season of cultural priority for retailers worldwide who… Read more »

FACT: PR People Earn More Than Reporters

Every reporter and PR person knows that there exists a love/hate relationship between the two factions. Reporters get annoyed by impersonal, spammy, spray-and-pray pitches. They don’t like being pestered by pushy PR people paid to peddle people and products. Cutesy alliteration grates on their nerves. PR folks, on the other hand, sometimes find reporters rude, unresponsive and occasionally sneaky, such as when they agree to a… Read more »

Weathering the PR Award Storm

Tis the season – for awards, that is! It seems this is the time of year that there are hundreds of awards you can submit your stellar PR work for – and that’s the issue. How do you make sure you continue that stellar work and have time to submit for awards? Here are some tips to help you efficiently and effectively submit: Research – create… Read more »

Cardinals in Rome: Black Smoke = PR Win!

Speaking strictly as a PR guy, if I were a Cardinal in Rome charged with electing the next holiest Man on the planet, I’d take my sweet old time getting to the finish line. Here’s why: Only Google has the cash on hand to pay for the positive, continuous and positively ubiquitous PR the Catholic Church is experiencing right now. Incredible, isn’t it? Since the resignation… Read more »

Visual Content: Worth More than a Thousand Words

We’re visual people – and have always been. Many of our early clients were in digital imaging. We represented companies from capture to print, and everything in between. (And, in the case of Lexar, the long-term Matter client and leader of flash memory for digital cameras and mobile devices, the “between” has always been extremely important to us.) Still today, many of our clients are in… Read more »