Guest post: Entertainment PR by Zoe Hunter

Prior to beginning the New Media course, I had no idea about Google alerts. Once creating my own alerts however, I grew a fond appreciation for yet another successful tool Google has allowed its users to utilize. For the purpose of the class, I set 3 different Google alerts for the 3 different sections one of my name, one of an industry of public relations, and another of a random company of choice. My favorite and the one that demonstrated the need for Google alerts the most were the results yielded by my “Apple, Co.” search. Many articles that seemed critical to the Apple brand were found that discussed the horrible working conditions of the production of Apple products. My favorite article of these results (although very short) was: Apple Products Come At A Cost, which discussed the working conditions of Apple as reported in a monologue by Mike Daisey. Many other results found were pertaining to boycotting Apple products because of these wrongful working condition, etc. These results alone displayed the necessity for public relations practitioners to set up Google alerts for whomever they serve to be able to catch these types of articles and find things that they may deem necessary to respond to - especially articles damaging the reputation of an organization.

With a degree in Public Relations, my personal career goal is to work in music entertainment, therefore maintaining images will be very important as celebrity speculation has, in recent years, been at at an all-time high with the increased usage of celebrity gossip blogs (such as Perez Hilton and Necole Bitchie). Setting Google Alerts for individual celebrities will be beneficial in keeping up with what the media is talking about, and how to combat some of the negative images that may be found.

For more on celebrity news and music entertainment visit zoeshunterPR.blogspot.com.