public relations

PR: new tools of the trade

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

913050_toolsLater than planned to blog this but I am loving the list by ex-Weber pal Ged about the top 29 not very technical things all PR people should know…a short summary here:

  1. How to manage your email inbox: this article from The Times is a good place to start
  2. How to touch type – if you can’t manage your email box or have to do hunt-and-peck typing how are you going to find the time to think about working smarter?
  3. How to create a link. Look at the source code of this blog post or Google it if you don’t know how.
  4. How to embed photos and videos
  5. How to buy a domain name
  6. How to set up a flickr account
  7. How to buy an ad on Google AdWords
  8. How to use an RSS reader
  9. How to set up Google Alerts
  10. How to do some advanced searches such as phrase matches, Boolean search terms, and site-specific searches
  11. How to conduct research efficiently and effectively using online tools
  12. How to understand the nature of a community and assess a blogs authority
  13. How Wikipedia works and how to get involved in the process for having a post changed
  14. Understand the nature of conversations and their appropriateness for your client
  15. How to upload photos and video to the web
  16. Understand the basics of how to record audio
  17. How to take interesting photos and the basic operation of a digital SLR
  18. Understand the basics of shooting video
  19. Understand the simple data of web analytics tools
  20. How to use social networks, beyond Facebook and LinkedIn
  21. How to use Twitter
  22. Understand the basics of community management.
  23. How to use free online survey tools
  24. How to use tags
  25. How to use social bookmarking tools and have a collection of useful and interesting resources
  26. How to share a presentation online
  27. How to use FTP software to move large files about (I can’t believe that PR people often don’t know this, especially when many picture desks have made use of FTP servers for a good while)
  28. How to use online calendar services
  29. How to use event registration management systems

Wanted to add a few more of my own:

30. How to source, use and reference photos for presentations, documents, blog posts using flickr and other image sites

31. How to set up a PR community online using Huddle or similar

32. How to edit a short video clip

33. What dpi a publication requires (cringe if I see people send over crappy little images)

34. How to pdf a document (using primopdf or other)

35. How not to rely on social networking as the only tool to build their contact book #reallifeandallthat

36. How to set up a blog

37. How to write for the web

38. How to set up their Blackberry/phone with useful mobile apps

39. How to take a screen grab

40. How to manage a quality online filing system so stuff doesn’t go wrong/get lost/piss clients off

I’d like to tag Wadds and Jed hallam to see if they can add any more.

my Twitter essentials

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

twitter-logo-large

Three things I am finding very useful for monitoring topics and clients within the realm of lovely Twitter:

Twist — Real time tracking of trends in Twitter – compare 2 trends graphically over a 7 or 30 day period.  Great for showing clients how they are fairing against competitors or comparing one brand vs another for the same client. Can also embed the dynamic or static charts into your site for ongoing tracking.

Twilert — Email alerts when stuff you want to keep track of is mentioned on Twitter. Daily, weekly, monthly options available. Useful for longer term research and analysis.

Twitter search — oldie but goodie great for real time monitoring e.g. this morning for keeping on top of N97 news. Like the detail and the flow of tweets this provides.

new day new website

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

At work, we’re in the process of renovating our agency website and a few of the Ruder Finn team have joined the blogging masses too – shameless pimp but hey ho, it’s there if you fancy taking a look.

Things have been changing for a while at Ruder Finn, we’ve been slowly but surely building up our technology and interactive practice (huge in US and Asia but we’ve been predominantly healthcare, corporate and parliamentary in the UK for the past few years) and things are really taking off at the moment. Good times 🙂

the flackenhacks in pictures

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Bit late but wanted to do a quick post about the Flackenhacks last week – great event.

Fab to meet so many peeps in the flesh and catch up with some old colleagues and journalists I haven’t seen in a while.

Our ice creams went down a treat it seems (120 of ’em were served at any rate).

Huge congrats to Stephen and Steve (plus all the others who have built Rainier up to its current glory) for winning agency of the year.

Bitterly regretted drinking so much dodgy white wine the next day but hey ho.  See you all next year and in the meantime, here are some of our piccies from the night: