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.

Dell's launch of Della, a website marketing Dell's netbooks to women, isn't giving female consumers a reason to whip out their credit cards. From MSNBC's Let's market PCs like it's 1959 article to Advertising Age's Dell's Della Debacle an Example of Wrong Way to Target Women, Della's approach to targeting female consumers has been widely criticized.

Dell has made changes to Della since it went live May 11. An article on Seven Unexpected Ways a Netbook Can Change Your Life has been changed to 5 Ways to Use a Netbook with references to using your netbook to find recipes online being removed. The Della home page has also been given a makeover with an image of women's clothes matching their laptops being replaced with several other pictures of women lounging around with their netbooks.

Has Dell missed the mark with its Della site?

Journalists are constantly scouring the Internet for buzz worthy news. Does your media newsroom give them the info they need?

A company without a content-rich media newsroom is missing out on the power of free publicity. Find out what journalists are looking for in your media newsroom so they turn to you before your competitors.

You want to work in advertising but you have no idea where to begin. Whether you're studying advertising, wanting to become a freelancer or you're looking for ad agency work, this free e-course helps you launch your advertising career.

• Free E-Course: Starting Your Career in Advertising

There are plenty of ways to find a job in advertising. You can work at a full-service advertising agency, in-house agency or freelance to get your foot in the door.

The competition is fierce right now because of the economy. But you can make yourself stand out to land interview with ad agency and follow various strategies to get a job at an ad agency

Electronic Arts is banking on the success of The Sims franchise to carry over into its third installment of the game. The company is launching the largest retail campaign in the company's history.

Gearing up for The Sims 3's release on June 2, EA is making a major push to convert non-Sims players into addicted Sims fans. Most of the marketing effort will be online. There are three facets to EA's strategy.

The first is a free trial from the official website at Sims3.com. The trial's goal is to allow non-Sim players to get a feel for how the game works.

The second option is SimFriend, which allows users to find one of 120 Sim pen pals. The Sim will send you an email based on his personality traits.

The final strategy is called SimSidekick. The image of the Sim will follow you around the Internet with sites like MTV.com, Twitter and YouTube prompting a specific action from the sidekick. The hovering image is much like when Skittles turned its home page over to Twitter and Facebook.

Just hours before actor-director Woody Allen was set to testify in his lawsuit against American Apparel, the two sides agreed to a settlement. American Apparel's insurance company will pay half of Allen's $10 million demand, settling the suit for $5 million.

Allen filed suit against American Apparel last year over a billboard and Internet ads using his image. The ads showed altered pictures of Allen as a rabbi from the Oscar-winning movie Annie Hall.

American Apparel balked at the claim for $10 million in damages. In the end, the insurance company controlled the case's defense and made the decision to settle.

Allen said he received no compensation from the ads. The lawsuit claimed that he "does not engage in the commercial endorsement of products or services in the United States" and that he hasn't appeared in any ads for U.S. products since the 1960s.

Is the settlement amount justified or outrageous? Share your opinion.