Real estate reporters want relationships, not pitches. Are you listening?

What’s the most underrated skill in public relations today? It’s not mastering AI tools, or writing punchy subject lines, or even generating a buzz on social media. For the long game? It is relationships. Not the superficial, connect-and-forget kind built through mass emails or casual LinkedIn DMs. I’m talking about actual relationships. The kind that takes time, trust, consistency, and a deep understanding of the journalists we aim to work with; the kind built over years, not news cycles. The latest Cision One State of the Media survey, which gathered insights from over 3,000 journalists across 19 global markets, drives [...]

By |2025-08-05T12:10:20-07:00August 5th, 2025|Real Estate Technology|Comments Off on Real estate reporters want relationships, not pitches. Are you listening?
Read More

Real AI: No PR – AI will make you a ghost, facts, headlines and the word of the week

By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 2 Real AI is a 100% human-created weekly roundup of all things AI in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact real estate, posting a new edition every Friday. No PR? AI will make you a ghost While using generative AI, Victor Lund, Founding Partner at WAV Group, uncovered a new vital reason why public relations (PR) is essential for every firm, product, and service. His prompt requested AI to create information on firms that offer MLSs rev share for data aggregation and distribution. Granted, [...]

By |2024-05-13T13:57:14-07:00January 12th, 2024|Artificial Intelligence, Communications and PR, Technology|Comments Off on Real AI: No PR – AI will make you a ghost, facts, headlines and the word of the week
Read More

Does your website have a Newsroom? It should

One of any organization’s core public relations strategies is the creation and dissemination of your story. Every company has a story. What makes you different? Better? Stand out? Memorable?

By |2024-04-24T06:59:38-07:00October 8th, 2020|Communications and PR, Our Company, Our Services|1 Comment
Read More

Communications Planning & Preparation Best Practices

If there ever was a time for MLSs and Associations to have a communications plan, it is now. 2020 lived up to its moniker by giving us clear vision into the unbelievable. And all bets are off in assuming we know what the future will bring. When you prepare a media plan, you are creating a communications system that can stand up to uncertain times in 2020 and beyond.

By |2020-07-01T17:07:24-07:00July 1st, 2020|Main category, Marketing, Our Services, Strategic Planning|3 Comments
Read More

Words Matter

Welcome to the New Year! Have you performed a PR audit? What does your brand say? The inspiration for this article came from the new Realtor.com ads. The language that Realtor.com is using is “The Home for Home Search.” My first reaction was way didn’t they use “Your Home for Home Search?” When a brand like Realtor.com comes up with a slogan for a multi-million dollar ad campaign, there is purpose behind word selection. I bet that they evaluated dozens of slogans, consumer tested dozens of slogans, and did legal review on dozens of slogans. 

By |2019-01-15T08:13:39-08:00January 14th, 2019|Main category, Our Services|Comments Off on Words Matter
Read More

Best PR Quotes of All Time

My top favorite pastime is being a professional mentor of high school robotics team where I live, just a short ferry ride from downtown Seattle on Bainbridge Island. It’s a FIRST Robotics Team (4915 Spartronics) that I helped found six years ago. I’m the lead marketing mentor.

By |2018-12-16T13:34:25-08:00December 16th, 2018|Main category, Marketing, Our Company, Our Services, Press Releases|Comments Off on Best PR Quotes of All Time
Read More

What is Public Relations?

I am still stunned by the number of people I meet in the real estate industry, including prospective clients, who really don’t understand what Public Relations is. More importantly, many people often have misconceptions about what PR can do. Most often, PR is confused with activities and outcomes that are entirely in the realm of Advertising.

By |2018-04-30T06:15:26-07:00April 30th, 2018|Main category, Our Company, Our Services|1 Comment
Read More

Paid Newswires: Are They Worth It?

One of the tools in the Public Relations’ publicity toolkit to communicate for decades has been a paid newswire. PR Newswire and Business Wire early on dominated the business in the U.S. What people don't realize is that the reason one used a paid newswire has evolved with technology and our times.  Initially, the popularity of newswires was fueled by federal regulations that required public companies to meet specific disclosure laws. With the digitization of news and the expansion of the Internet, firms like Marketwire and PRWeb emerged (and much later, GlobeNewswire), and so did the value proposition of newswires. Technology firms became the client of these more Internet-focused firms, and the value proposition became SEO.

By |2018-03-19T21:00:34-07:00March 19th, 2018|Main category|3 Comments
Read More

Consolidation: What PR Tactics Can Help?

2018 could very well be the “Year of Consolidation” in the MLS industry. With the recent NAR move towards an “MLS of Choice” policy, we are likely to see a huge momentum build towards consolidation, especially in the second half of next year. That’s because smaller MLSs are going to find profitability under their current pricing model impossible. The simplest (and most often the best) solution will be to merge. By failing to plan for the role communications and PR plays within a consolidation, you are planning to fail. That’s because an effective communications and PR plan is vital to [...]

By |2017-11-29T14:27:53-08:00November 29th, 2017|Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Consolidation: What PR Tactics Can Help?
Read More

Communications and Public Relations are not Advertising

About four years ago, WAV Group expanded its consulting services to include Public Relations and Communications. Like everything at WAV Group, this service is an extension of our core Strategic Planning services. In our planning experiences, we learned that companies are not doing enough research to measure customer and employee satisfaction. So we started WAV Group Research. We learned that many companies have a hard time recruiting and hiring the right people, so we started WAV Group recruiting. WAV Group communications help companies develop and implement great communications and PR strategies. Kevin Hawkins is our leader in this segment of [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:35-07:00November 2nd, 2017|Main category, Press Releases|Comments Off on Communications and Public Relations are not Advertising
Read More

Managing PR Risks Throughout Consolidation

The MLS industry faces rapid consolidation within the next few years. In just the last couple of years, the WAV Group estimates that the number of Multiple Listing Services firms have shrunk by about 15 percent, from about 750 to some 650 today. And that’s just the beginning. This is not a new business phenomenon: the energy industry over a 20-year period, from 1995 to 2015 has shrunk by half. In travel today, 16 cruise ship brands are owned by just three firms, as are the nine major rental car company brands. Only 7 hotel conglomerates own the 80 hotel brands that dominate [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:36-07:00October 24th, 2017|Main category|Comments Off on Managing PR Risks Throughout Consolidation
Read More

It’s the Biggest Marketing and PR Mistake

Stay on message. Those three little words sound so simple. But it amazes me how difficult it seems for companies – and their messengers – to do this. It should be the core of their marketing and PR compass. Consistency and repetition: That’s what every well-crafted marketing and PR program adheres to over the long haul. Unfortunately, most companies forget these crucial tenets and they stray. Or worse, they veer so far from their original course, they completely undermine what they have already have accomplished. Building brand awareness takes time, often a very long time. Building brand loyalty (a.k.a. understanding [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:22:39-07:00September 18th, 2017|Main category, Sales Advisory, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on It’s the Biggest Marketing and PR Mistake
Read More
WAV Group | Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved.