By David Moye
When you want good PR, never underestimate the power of a laugh, a smile, a giggle or even a chortle.
In fact, the key to good PR often involves doing or saying something that makes a jaded journalist or particular TV producer smile or laugh.
The good PR people -- and the good clients -- understand this. Humor is a great way to stick out from your competitors and show off your advantages. Even better: If you make someone laugh, they are likely to trust you and your message.
We at Alternative Strategies constantly use humor to benefit our clients and ourselves.
Last summer, we spoofed all the hype about social media by creating a new campaign declaring sandwich boards the newest (and oldest) form of social media. By writing a tongue-in-cheek press release that compared sandwich boards to Web 2.0 and those sign spinners on the corner to slow-loading flash sites, we got a lot of postive press for the company.
We also managed to get a TV segment for a beloved bar by having one of the bartenders demonstrate bizarre hangover cures used by other cultures.
Another client, a fitness trainer, landed a TV segment on a major Chicago TV station when we asked her to create a workout designed to be done during the halftime of football games (so you could work off enough calories to have another beer).
But humor isn't just for press releases. It is great with dealing with the media. A lot of media types are jaded, cynical people who hear the same story every day. They have very dark senses of humor and if you can make them laugh, you're halfway there.
Is there time when humor doesn't work?
Yes.
If you are doing damage control, it is best not to joke around because it can come back to bite you.
Also, humor that insults others is a no no. If you are using humor, it is better to make fun of yourself than others.
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