Posted by Lisa Hochgraf
I've been thinking a lot about public relations for credit unions lately.
That's partly because our star "PR Insight" columnist of several years, Laura Enock of CUVA, will stop writing about PR so she can author a new column for us in 2008. Check out "Teaching Smart Money Management"--all about how CUs can best deliver financial literacy education--on the second Tuesday of every month on cues.org, starting Jan. 8.
That change in the line-up means this editor has been scouting new writers. I'm excited that several new friends from the CU blogosphere are coming on board as 2008 authors. Thank you Tony and Tim, and there's one more in the works! (If you're interested in writing a column, drop me a line.)
I'm glad we had Laura's expertise for so long. She has built quite a legacy of articles with really good PR advice. I'm also glad we're going to continue covering PR every month. An editor myself, it's clear that there's still much that can be learned.
Why just this morning, my boss did something she often does: She forwarded me a press release from a credit union that she thought I might be interested in. The good news is, I was interested. The bad news is just how much time she had to spend to find out what the release was about. The subject line was "press release" so to find out more she had to open the e-mail. The body of the e-mail said nothing more, so she had to open the attachment. And then she copied the gist of the release from the attachment, pasting it into the body of the e-mail before she sent it off to me--to save me time. Whew! And thanks!
But I don't want to end with a rant. Here's a kudo to wrap things up.
Public relations can be a powerful tool. Cathy Graham, AVP/marketing at Desert Schools FCU, must have had this in mind when she hired Jason Meyers, now the CU's director of marketing and PR. As I've watched his work and worked with him directly, he's proven over and over that he knows how to handle the media (this editor included)! If you can't wait for the new PR Insight columns (the first Thursday of every month starting Jan. 3), check out these two articles Meyers wrote for cues.org in 2007. Be inspired. And, make it easy for the editor!
