Companies often neglect one of the easiest vehicles for free publicity: an online newsroom. Building a buzzworthy newsroom on your company website is a key part of managing your own PR campaign.

Make your online press room a leading source of news for journalists. These five tips share the secrets of a successful online press room.

General Motors may owe over $160 million to its ad agencies but that's not stopping the company from starting a new ad campaign. After filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week, the company is now reorganizing and reassuring.

The new ad campaign includes TV, a new website called GMReinvention.com and social networking through Facebook and Twitter. The one-minute TV commercial uses 80-percent stock footage with a voiceover that says, "Reinvention is the only way we can fix this...and fix it, we will."

Deutsch L.A. created the ad. It debuted Wednesday night in ad space GM had already purchased.

Fast food companies have suffered bad PR. Companies have had their products attributed to people's deaths. Most have overcome the bad press.

Will GM's reassurance plan help the company get back in a positive light with customers?

Need to advertise something but don't have a lot of cash? Flyers are an inexpensive way to reach a wide audience.

If a flyer won't work for you, there are other types of low-cost methods you can use to advertise your business. Advertising in a bad economy may not seem like a good idea but with research showing your business can benefit and with the limited amount of money you can spend to get a good return, you can advertise through effective mediums without spending a fortune.

The Future of Advertising Project, from the Wharton School and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), finds that print and online advertising are the most effective mediums. The study also found that DVRs aren't cutting companies' profits from advertising but TV advertising does lose money for most businesses.

The 21-paper study will be released in the June issue of the ARF's Journal of Advertising. The study's original purpose was to investigate claims that DVRs are killing TV ad sales, which the study found was not true.