a web blog associated with Public Relations…. PR-ing it on!

Hello everyone!  Hope you’re all well and had a good summer! Long time no blog, I know… but that’s just because I’ve been waiting for my feedback on my dissertation, as I wanted to blog about it. Well it’s good news… I did really well and I’m over the moon!! Hard work pays off, that’s all I can say!!! Before I go on, I’d like to thank my supervisor, for all his help throughout the year, much appreciated!

Some of you will already know by now that that I’ve been studying Strategic Public Relations and Communications Management at Stirling University and that the final part of a Masters Degree requires a dissertation. Therefore, soon to come is my thoughts and findings on it, which I extremely enjoyed doing and was titled: ‘A Research Study on Social Media Usage as a Communication/PR Tool: A Cypriot Perspective’.

Social media (SM) is very exciting once you get involved and know the benefits and limitations of it… and although SM is not as ‘new’ in some places around the world, it is quite new for Cyprus which made my research more interesting. Luckily, I have worked in the Marketing Department of my previous University in the UK liaising with the Marketing Manager and other Marketing Assistants which gave me the chance to put some of my knowledge into practice. One of my main responsibilities was being in charge of different social networking sites. I am an active member of various social networking sites myself, but I got a chance to use it for both professional and personal reasons. The fact that I enjoyed being involved in this field, was one of the reasons I chose to focus on it for my undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation.

However, as my postgraduate dissertation is concerned, I wanted to go beyond social networking sites and look into how SM as a whole could help PR in Cyprus as a communication tool. How practitioners feel about communication change, and if change was acknowledged; as well as adapting to this change, were key factors of my research in a range of different organisations.

Three key objectives my research focused on are the following:

• Identify how practitioners in Cyprus associate the term SM, and the extent to which SM is used

• Uncover any commonalities and/or differences of how SM is being used by PR practitioners in different industries and different sized organisations in Cyprus

• Identify the concept of change in communication through a Cypriot perspective

Hopefully this post informed you about what is going to come next as I will be discussing the findings of the above objectives and I am sure many of you will find very interesting. Having seen and heard about how SM is used in the UK as a communication and PR tool, all I can say for now is that my findings are very different to it. I am looking forward to your comments and contribution to my next post!

Keep an eye out, it’s coming soon! In the meantime… any predictions?

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know, that as this blog was part of my module, I am not allowed to post anything until my tutor @stirpr grades all my brilliant posts I made ( optimistic! – ‘lol’), and then I’ll be back as soon as I hear from him!!!

So if I don’t blog for a while, you now know why.

Thank you for everyone who contributed and made this part of my course so interesting. I’m glad I chose this course, I’ve learnt so much, and blogging is something I’ll definitely continue and I’ll be making posts which I think they are worth sharing with you.

I can’t believe it’s the end of my MSc……wow!

Now it’s full focus on my dissertation-but I promise, I WILL BE BACK!

Keep on Smiling

S

x

A great innovation could come from turning an existing idea, into a more effective and smarter one. That’s what happened with the well known ‘press release’. The new press release is now called a Social Media Press Release (SMNR) which is designed for online media.

How is it better and smarter than the old press release? It’s simple, the old press release was just written with the ‘press’ in mind. The SMNR, is (or better if I say MUST be) written with a variety of people in mind. It must be written with the journalists in mind, bloggers, publishers and the publics at large. It is designed in a way that fits within the nature and community of the online world. This in turn allows it to be shared and commented through social bookmarking, micro blogging and social networking communities.

A Press Release seeks to influence their target audiences’ through focusing on relationships through journalists, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. A SMNR however is a little bit different. In order to achieve that influence you want, it is vital you get involved in this online world through listening, being accepted by the community on their terms and not yours, providing relevant and quality content and engaging with people and conversations in order to build relationships.

A SMNR takes advantage of the online social media tools such as You Tube, images, audio and hyperlinks to relevant websites and coverage of resulting online conversations. The message is sent out to a larger audience and the message is communicated more effectively.

The idea of having a SMNR started off with a former Financial Times journalist called Tom Foremski when on the 27th of February 27, 2006 he posted a blog with the title of “Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!” If you read it, you’ll see that he made his feelings quite clear of how he didn’t like the traditional Press Release where he made a request to the PR industry that it should be written in a more realistic approach. Todd Defren, by SHIFT Communications was inspired by it, and was the first to release the SMNR template which is 100% open to all marketing/PR community. This is how the latest version of it looks like

The PR Week on the 18th of July, 2007, stated that “newly published research indicates that 75% of journalists would prefer to receive media-rich press releases than a standard e-mail or Word file attachment”. Furthermore, RealWire analysed 997 releases during the period December 2008 to May 2009 for which coverage tracking statistics had been gathered by their Proveit release evaluation service. 71 of these were Social Media News Releases giving  these results.

The Social Media Newsroom template however, “is intended to get companies thinking about how to present themselves to broader audiences; to motivate greater participation and openness; and potentially boost organic website SEO” (Todd Defren, SHIFT Communiations). It allows you to bring together information about your business into a vibrant, central location. It includes contact information, bookmarks, latest news and more. People then are able to comment on your organisations news directly into your press release which is then directed to your newsroom. This presentation is in pdf format, made by SHIFT Communications, which explains everything you need to know about the Social Media Newsroom and this is how it looks like.

They’ve been around for some time now, and I think that they’re great idea and indeed up to date with what is going on around us in this online world. Being able to receive a news release which is media-rich just makes it more interesting. What are your thoughts about it?  Do you like it or do you think the old and normal press release is much easier and straight to the point?

Twitter defines itself as

“a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now”.

This post is about my personal use of Twitter. We were asked to create a twitter account for my module, but I’ve been using it for over a year now and was actually quite shocked that hardly anyone from class had one! To be honest, what I love most about twitter is the fact that you get to know the breaking news first through it, and it’s the information YOU want to know, because you get to control who you follow. For example I get interesting daily information from some of the following @toprank, @crackberry, @BlackBerry, @therealprmoment, @behindthespin, @BenCotton, @cyprusmail, @prweekuknews, @stedavies, @CIPR_UK and @cnnbrk. So even if I don’t read the paper for a day or a magazine, I get updated via Twitter, at any time I want because I also have it on my blackberry. When I’m usually on my PC working, I always have TweetDeck open, which makes it much easier for me to see who ‘mentions’ me, or who ‘direct messages’ me, and I also have a number of lists open, such as #stirpr.

I know quite a few people that still find it hard to use Twitter, and aren’t yet convinced about the usefulness of it. I personally think it might be more addictive once you get the hang of Tweeting and Re-tweeting. The picture here is something I came up with, and what I feel Twitter is all about.

For my module in Digital Media and PR, we created the hashtag of #stirpr which allowed my classmates and myself use it to share interesting posts and notify eachother when each of us had a new blog post. Our lecturer @stirpr also shared helpful links we could use for our module and other interesting related material.

We recently had a ‘Public Relations Expert Panel and Networking Event’ at our university with six of Scotland’s finest Public Relations practitioners that  provided us with an insight into the world of PR. Our guests included:

• Jason Wassell: (DLA Piper) @JasonWassell
• Craig McGill: (Contently Managed) @craigmcgill
• Tom Fox: (SPS)
• Emma Diamond: (CIPR Scotland Chair) @WeeDiamonds
• Julie McGarvey: (3×1)
• Tony Meehan: (TMA Associates)

Although all presentations that were given were very interesting, Craig Mcgill talked about ‘Digital Media and Brand Development’ something that relates to my posting I’m making on twitter at the moment. Before I attended the event, I did some research on Google to see who of our six PR practitioners were on twitter, and I found a few. I tweeted them saying that I am looking forward in meeting them, and that’s when the online networking started. I got my first reply from @craigmcgill saying that we should hashtag the event as #ciprstirling…the rest got involved, and @CIPR_Scotland also got notified about it….all through the power of Twitter!

This is a good example of  ‘The Value of Effective Networking’ which Tony Meehan talked about that day. Twitter allows you to talk with people you want to, exchange information. Even if you’re having trouble with something, you can ask for help and get advice in minutes, or even seconds. When I had trouble setting up my blog with wordpress.com, all I did was tweeted something like this “I’m having trouble with #wordpress, I can’t find the right plug-in for google analytics”. It only took a few minutes before @rxhost saw my tweet and offered to help me, and that’s because I put a hashtag in front of the word #wordpress. I couldn’t find a better helper than @rxhost, I would recommend him at any time!

Now, although the twitterville fans would know this, all you users that don’t quite ‘get’ Twitter…it allows you to engage with anyone you want, from all around the world! I get valuable information daily on stuff I like to read and learn about, like social media and PR, by following the right people. I get so many feeds from different public relations or public communications management practitioners and academics. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from anyone. You will be amazed how helpful twitter can be, in so many different perspectives! Like promoting your blog by posting updates, or getting a lot of followers for being active in twitter which can eventually drive huge traffic to your blog or website!
My advice for those who are still trying to figure out Twitter and it’s its benefits…

Use it and you’ll Love it!
I do!

How would you characterize Twitter in 7 words or 140 characters?

Reputation is something very important to all of us. Either that is as individuals or a company. Claire Powell (left), ex publicist of Katie Price, aka Jordan, forced to take Katie to court after she had made a controversial comment on the Graham Norton Show last October. Claire Powell, whose company Can Associates Limited still represents Peter Andre was forced to take legal actions and sue Katie Price for the allegation made.

Katie accused Powell of having an affair with her ex husband Peter Andre. Powell’s solicitor Mike Brookes said that this accusation was “serious, damaging and distressing” for her. This accusation was made in front of two other fellow guests at the show, and a studio audience of an approximate number of 600 people. The allegation was not broadcast on the show since the BBC “quite sensibly” edited what Katie said before it went on national TV. However, this had already been picked up by a number of tabloid newspapers.

Claire Powell is with Neville Hendricks, who is also the father of her child. She is a 43 year old greatly respected woman within the celebrity PR industry. The Guardian voted Powell as one of the top 20 most powerful celebrity makers. Therefore, reputation matters even more as it interferes with her job.

Price’s solicitor, Keith Ashby, released a statement as she was not present in court. It stated “she greatly regrets what has happened, and joins in the making of this statement in order to assist in settling the record straight”. Katie Price agreed to pay compensation, as well as Powell’s legal fees. Powell said “I didn’t really want to be in court but if something bad is said which is going to trash your reputation, you have to clear your name”.

So, that’s how much reputation matters and that’s how far people go to save it. It is how you are perceived through the eyes of everyone, either that is customers, suppliers, employees and other parties.  It is important to pay attention to your reputation and work on improving it. Once a negative event comes up, it can drag you through the mud for quite a while, depending on the level of seriousness. We see and hear about it every day, either it’s Nestlé (see previous blog post), or Tiger Woods, or Claire Powell.

One of my favourite things I say when it comes to PR is what I already have as a note on my blog. Everything you say or do is PR. That highly involves your reputation, and everyone needs to keep it safe, as having a good reputation can get people to respect and admire you.  In addition to this, it can take you places that having a bad reputation can definitely not take you!

I imagine that what Claire Powell did was hard, taking Katie Price to court as they were so close and worked together for so long. My personal opinion is that Powell did the right thing, and saved her reputation but also, Can Associates. Powell told PRWeek that she had to do everything possible to clear her name and the company’s reputation, owing to a vast number of untruths. She also said that “in this current economic climate, these claims can affect a company so much”. I think she did the right thing for her and the company!

££££   Sorry Pricey, you had to pay the price   ££££

So, how much attention do you pay to your reputation? What steps do you take as a company to improve it? Remember, reputation is a hidden asset, and entrepreneurs invest in it because they know to get capital they have to get known and liked by the right people….