How often do you hire out for a skilled writer? Sometimes? Never?

Mike Stelzner is a freelancer for CopyBlogger who makes over $300K a year writing white papers.

He has a new video that "reveals how he went from desperate to knee-deep in lucrative new business...all thanks to a single white paper."

(image via gawker)

Both AdWeek and PRWeek covered the Hunter College PR controversy yesterday, which may be have been the first time we've ever seen the trades publications both cover the same story in one day.

According to AdWeek, who first broke the news, a PR course at Hunter College in New York, "was funded by a $10,000 grant from Coach and was part of a college outreach campaign by the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC), a trade group that includes Coach and other brands like Apple, Levi Strauss & Co., Louis Vuitton and Rolex."

This course resulted in the students creating a fake character, Heidi Cee, who "lost" her coach bag and posted fliers all over campus looking for help. Fake blogs, Myspace and Facebook pages were created for fake Heidi, drawing thousands of hits, while interspersing anti-counterfeiting messages from IACC.

Andrew Adam Newman wrote in AdWeek, "One day, Cee blogged that another student had returned the bag. A day later, she wrote that on closer inspection, the bag was a fake and she had been scammed for the reward. Outraged ("EFFING COUNTERFEIT!" she wrote), Cee blogged that she was researching the world of counterfeit goods. She discovered, she wrote, that they're linked to criminal activity, child labor and terrorism."

Wow, it's easier to get college kids to scam people on the internet than we thought.

Of course, it all comes down to money, as some faculty see this as a way to "butter up Coach's CEO, Lew Frankfort, a Hunter alumnus, who several months later [after the class] donated $1 million to the school."

One NYC agency CEO told PRNewser, "bad enough that Coach is encouraging obfuscation here, but the fact that apparently no professors or students at Hunter raised a red flag is particularly disturbing..."

Happy Monday, faithful readers. A colleague sent us this image the other day. We've also seen it on Flickr and wanted to share it with you. The image comes from Neutron LLC.

Publicist Jeremy Walker contemplates retirement and then dishes his perspective on the business of film PR, in a column on indieWIRE.

A key take away - and something many of us aren't in the position to say: don't fake it. Says Walker:

It makes sense that a person who promotes movies will probably also be a person who loves movies, but what journalist should trust a publicist who loves every movie? I've found over the years that to love a movie is not enough reason to take it on; instead I have learned to only take on movies that I love and that I can actually do something with.

We couldn't agree more, but unfortunately the choice is not always that simple.

[Hat tip: Defamer]

Earlier today, we gave you a free report on social media monitoring and measurment. Now, courtesy of Marketing Sherpa, check out a free case study posted today on how to get higher search ranking and clickthrough rates for your press releases.

It's only free until Feb. 13th, so grab it now while you can!

There are several interesting PR webinars this week. Catching Flack mentions a few:

PRWeek webinar: The Changing World of Business News
Tuesday, January 22 @ noon Eastern. Speakers will include:
-Rafat Ali, founder and editor, ContentNext Media
-Mick Weinstein, editor-in-chief, Seeking Alpha
-Chris Peacock, executive editor and vice president, CNNMoney.com
-Shawn Dainas, group manager, worldwide communications, Sun Microsystems

Dow Jones webinar: Latest Trends in Social Media: How to Listen Effectively and Engage in the Conversation, Thursday, Jan. 31, 12:30 EST. Speakers will include:
-Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research and former Director of Corporate Media Strategy at PodTech.net
-Glenn Fannick, Product Development Manager at Dow Jones

One more after the jump.

continued...

All this talk about green, green, green. In his latest PR Week story, Hamilton Nolan takes a look at two companies who are walking the walk: The Nature Conservancy and Environmental Defense.

PRNewser particularly took note of this statement from the Nature Conservancy's Terry Richey on why they integrate, "everything from a self-published magazine and extensive Web site to direct mail and program-focused marketing materials."

...because we believe that all of that work ought to be integrated from a message point of view.

And, they're developing compelling online content:

"We just launched a carbon calculator on our Nature.org Web site, and I believe we've had about 75,000 [uses of it]," he says. "We're seeing that uptick tremendously on our Web site."

The carbon calculator fits the bill for our two question survey for social media/online content: 1) is it useful, or 2) is it entertaining? You must have one or the other to have success.

(image via clipart)

Everyone's talking recession these days. MarketingSherpa today takes a closer look at how PR, and to a lesser note, the media will fare in an economic downturn.

Content Director Anne Holland states that because the ad budget is almost always the first to go, "PR always gains in popularity during a recession, even an incipient one like what we're undergoing these days."

Anne goes on to write:

If you are trying to get more glowing press coverage in this down market, one factor can help you. Trade journalists like exclusive case studies in any economy, but when the going gets tough, they utterly adore them. In 2008, it's going to be easier to get case study coverage than ever before.

As Micky Long at Aberdeen Group once told me, "In a recession, reporting coverage moves. It's not about vision or the next greatest thing; it's about show-me-the-money. Show me the ROI. Reporters say, "Let me talk to a customer.'"

It's about the access, people! Give it to the right reporter at the right time and you will succeed.

We spent a fair amount of time in the scouts when we were young. Mostly, we looked forward to things like camping, bonfires and the annual pine wood derby.

Over the weekend, the Scouting Association in the UK announced several new, unconventional merit badges including, you guessed it, public relations.

According to the Associated Press:

Among the requirements for the new public relations badge: contacting a local media outlet and pitching a positive news story about scouting or writing a report about the movement and getting it published in, for example, a local paper.

Pitch away, scouts!

(image cred)

It can be a PR person's worst nightmare. You email a reporter or blogger, somehow thinking the conversation is off the record, only to find, "Company spokesperson John Smith said - insert damaging quote here" in an big story the next day.

These days, it seems everything is on the record.

Have you considered adding something like this to your e-mail signature?

"this email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private"

I've seen this on more and more e-mails lately, and it makes sense to me.

Hat tip to Ross Mayfield for starting the trend, and yes, Julia Allison for reminding me to post something about it.