Increasing Awareness

In a world overloaded with information, how do you ensure your message stands out? Whether you’re an association, nonprofit, or foundation, your goals may vary from sharing your mission to promoting your values to raising awareness about a social issue or a health care problem. Regardless of the objective, storytelling can be the most powerful […]

When Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate, it wasn’t at a news conference or a sit-down interview with a broadcast network. Instead, she just posted it on Instagram. This followed one of the most historic moments in political history, when President Biden chose to drop out of the race – […]

Whenever I look back on my 50-year career in American journalism, I inevitably have two reactions: 1) Yikes! I’m getting old! and 2) the changes in the media landscape have been so incredibly dramatic that it sounds like I’m telling tales from another century (which it actually was when I started in 1973.) I worked […]

When people ask me what I do, I sometimes say I’m a matchmaker — but not the romantic kind. I match our clients’ needs and narratives with the needs of journalists to bring attention to the organizations’ expertise, accomplishments and issues. In the jargon of public relations, I specialize in earned media. To be an […]

Since the start of COVID-19, we all experienced a mass migration into the virtual world. Over time, as America’s businesses and organizations are moving to a hybrid work environment, it’s still clear that Zoom is here to stay. Realizing that this would be our new normal, The Reis group has concentrated on how to maintain—and […]

We come across bridges in our everyday lives, and rarely think about them; that was me, until I started working in public relations. Now, every time I see one, I think of how it relates to our work in media outreach. As public relations professionals, we are often tasked with elevating the reputations of our […]

Your organization has worked hard and just finished preparing new resources, and you are excited for your audience to begin using them. You’ve posted all the new material on your website, but when you check your traffic, you don’t see the spike in page visits that you were expecting. It turns out that most of […]

One of the worst sins when I was in journalism school was to write a “wooden lead.” The grizzled—or should I say seasoned—editors who taught newswriting and editing at the University of Oklahoma would scowl at empty words at the top of a news story, crossing out one, two or even three dull opening paragraphs, […]

Developing patient education and awareness programs that are both engaging and effective is not always easy. It requires a lot of planning, and attention to detail. It also requires time to understand exactly who you want to reach, how you can best get their attention, and how you might be able to get them to […]

The dizzying pace of change in the Washington health policy climate under a new administration presents unpredictable challenges for those of us working in health care communications. Rapid-paced executive orders and seemingly contradictory announcements can create a chaotic information environment. But as communicators, we can’t let this hold us back from doing what we do […]