Press releases. Interviews. Newspapers. Media outlets. Tweets. Facebook posts. Magazines.

There are hundreds of ways for your word to get out there. And once that word is out there if its juicy enough it spreads like wildfire. The role of a good publicist is to make sure that all press – be it good or bad – is monitored. They try to make sure that word gets to where it has to go, and tries to keep it out of where it shouldn’t be.

When it comes to interviews there are a few tips to make sure that you don’t have any career ending quotes.

If you’re giving an interview, practice, practice, practice. A publicist will give a few good questions to the interviewer, and it’ll be up to you to practice the stories you’re be sharing.

And speaking of being prepared – don’t take interviews on the fly. Make sure that they are planned well in advance so you have the ability to practice. Nothing good comes from off the cuff.

When you have planned interviews, you are also now able to create a “no fly” list where you list the topics that are off limits. Sometimes there are just stories and situations that you just do not want to discuss. And that is A-Ok.

One of the last things to consider and this goes without saying – Think before you speak! All of the hairbrained things that go sent spiraling around the internet are things said off the cuff and without thinking.

So by using these tips – you’ll be limiting the amount of work a publicist has to do. And hopefully limiting the amount of monitoring that needs to happen to keep your brand in tip top shape!

By now, we all know about the tragedy that is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was brought on by an accident with an offshore oil rig a mile deep. This accident has been going on for two months now and leaking massive amounts of oil into the Gulf and there does not seem to be any end in sight.

BP, which is commonly known as British Petroleum before they rebranded in the 90s, is now officially BP, Inc., and has fallen into a pit of despair as far as their PR and public image is concerned.

They have taken steps to clean up their act as well, but is it enough? Were they the right steps?

By taking a look at their website, it is full of press releases, media statements, pictures that make them seem they are doing everything in their power to stop this tragedy.

Perhaps one of the worst things to come out recently was that BP has bought keywords on Google and Yahoo search engines. This came off as the company attempting to hide news, and well, that doesn’t go over well with the public.

On Twitter, an account was created called “BPGlobalPR” in order to spoof the fact that BP seemed to be doing nothing in the beginning to help it’s PR efforts or speak to the American public about what is going on. BP begged Twitter to have this account taken down only to have the response, “And we beg you to stop the oil spilling into the gulf.” Twitter ultimately made them change their description in the bio to state they were indeed not acting on the accord of BP officially, but they have every right to have said account.

It seems that everything BP does now is too little, too late. And with every day that this oil spill continues everyone loses.

What could BP have done in your opinion to make this better from the beginning? You know, ASIDE from fixing the problem?