public relations

21st century fanclubs

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

787059_crowdInteresting post on the changing role of the publicist by Ben Ayers at ITV. As celebrities and public figures continue to embrace new apps such as Twitter to engage directly with their fanbase, what does the future hold for publicists?

Publicists still need to have one toe in the old media pond, providing stories and stoking up excitement around a show for the traditional media outlets but to stay on top of their game the other must be fully submerged in the swirling new media waters.

On the downside, I think the future will bring a whole new level of public slip-ups too which given the highly visible nature of tools such as Twitter will require a large amount of firefighting.  Let’s hope that this era of open communication that is a fan’s dream doesn’t become a publicist’s nightmare.

PR: the future’s humble

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

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Ged tagged a few of us in a meme about the future of PR a little while back. As ever, my response is a bit later than planned 🙂

The tools, the rules, the results and the mistakes we make will continue to change but one trend I think we’ll see more of is a move towards humility.

The quickest way to spot someone who is just trotting out the same old ideas and the same old tried and trusted campaigns (despite their current relevance) is by their arrogance and cockiness.

Holding onto clients in a recession whilst continuing to be creative and do new things is scary so in my opinion, the future of PR is a humble one.  People truly pushing things in new directions are the ones with their heads down sharing, measuring and continually improving what they do, not the ones with their well-beaten chests out.

I’m sorry I haven’t a clue

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

471223_i_see___A quick look through my feeds and it seems like everyone turns into Nostradamus this time of year… Rather than cobble together a post on what I think the business world will hold for us in ’09 (as I have no idea to be honest) I thought I’d jot down my business (PR) resolutions instead.

We know it is going to be a tough year and this is how I plan on dealing with it.

1. Work flexibly — Be as productive as possible, limit commuting/travel to absolute necessity and get through the most work I can during working hours

2. Reduce evening working — Often just because I haven;t been as productive during the day as I could be but it leaves me feeling peed off if I work late all the time

3. Service, service and service — Clients HAVE to come first in our business but I intend to ask for a lot more input into how we are doing, where we could improve and continue to make sure our service is impeccable this year

4. Ramp up new business — Keep networking both on and off line, look at new services we can offer and continue to be competitively priced in 2009

5. Don’t look for the answer to “How’s business?” in spreadsheets — Continue as I always do to get out there and speak to clients, participate in campaigns, direct programmes and be a partner for clients.  the numbers only tell you so much….times like these mean you need to keep your head up and get out there

6. Keep hiring — New business was great for us at the end of last year so we are in a good place.  In the past, I have seen agencies try to squeeze FAR too much work out of people when the economy is bad, it is essential to keep hiring within your means, be fair to employees, reward loyalty and make sure people aren’t ground into the floor or you’ll lose all your good people the minute the economy picks up

7. Keep listening and learning — Whilst it might be tempting to offer the safe old campaigns and ideas in PR this year, that is not where the results will come from in many cases or where the budgets will be….need to keep improving, trying new stuff and measuring it as we go because nobody’s an expert unless they keep learning

8. Keep collaborating and helping out — Last year really was the year of community for me and I want to keep that spirit up this year

Cross posted at http://www.ruderfinn.co.uk/blogs

link love: stuff I read this week

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

1100036_love_foodSome interesting stuff I read this week (muchos hat tips to those involved):

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

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.