Courtesy of Jason Calacanis (by way of SAI), an extended screed on how to succeed via PR. It's an entertaining read; go check it out. One nugget:
My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be everywhere, be real.
You don't need a PR firm, you don't need an in-house PR person and you don't need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. You don't need to be connected, and you don't need to be a "name brand." Today, many bloggers lament how much press folks like Kevin Rose and Robert Scoble get. They say that they get too much attention and that they got this attention too quickly and without earning it.
Some of his suggestions are common sense, some make perfect sense for him and zero sense for someone else. As I was reading it I was laughing -- his next email post will no doubt contain his secrets for becoming a supermodel, and number one will be "be 6'2 and naturally thin with great bone structure." Seriously, a lot of his suggestions make sense if you have a ton of time on your hands and were born a huge extrovert. If that's not true, your mileage may vary. One of the comments really summed it up:
Zoe said:
Aug. 21, 8:32 AM
Dude, you don't need to hire a full time PR guy because you are a PR guy. That's fine, you used to run a news outlet.
If your a technology focused CEO you probably don't have to hire a CTO. If you're a BD focused CEO you don't have to hire a VP of biz dev. Those are your come competencies. In your case you're a PR focused ceo.
Btw, is it only me, or is there a lot of chatter right now about PR? Not. Dead. Yet. :)