Think before you Tweet

Yeees, everyone now knows that I'm an idiot as well as being a bit rubbish at football. Result!

Great story on the BBC about why people need to engage their brain before they start Tweeting. I follow about 700 people and it always amases me the amount of PR professionals who post inappropriate things. It is always amusing but I also always cringe.

105 Twitter apps for a PR professional

Twitter

If there are any PR professionals still looking for how to get the best out of Twitter check out this post by Genesis Davies which lists a whopping 105 different apps.

Vendor client relationship

I am a little behind on this one but was going through some of my old notes and came accross a link to Strive Notes and in particular to this viral video. Sherilynne had found the video herself via Wadds and it is a classic.

In a time when clients always want more for less this couldn’t be more appropriate. I particularly liked the couple at the restaurant who finish the clip by saying “we will pay this time but we are going to have to ask you to show us how you made it so we can do it in house next time”. Crazy but true.

Nick Booth – King of Response Source

Wind Farm

Following on from my last post Nick Booth has stepped up again with a classic Response Source. As a number of PRs on Twitter have said this afternoon….Nick Booth you are King of Response Source! Below is his latest effort in full. Very funny…oh and if you can help Nick drop him a line, I’m sure he would be happy to hear from you.

Two years ago, Ann Robinson turned up to an awards do with a permanently surprised expression, as if someone had goosed her in a wind tunnel. All the newspapers turned downy my story idea – Ann Robinson’s had a facelift – but three days later, they all ran a piece about her announcement. The BBC has a story today about Spinvox, that I was pitching two years ago! Damn! So: I’m warning you there’s no guarantee this feature I’m proposing will definitely run. But here goes: Are ‘green’ products a total con? Can we bench test them? Which work and which don’t?

Here’s money I’ve personally wasted on ’saving the planet’.
Solar car battery charger (£20)
Solar mobile phone charger (freebie, worth 49 quid)
Wind up radio
Solar radio
Wind up phone charger

All useless. None of them could generate enough power to torture a midge. Not to mention the wormery (it just filled up with old food) and a compost heap that attracted mice. Has anyone else invested in a green/wind/solar product that was a dud? How much did you spend? How useless was it? Do any solar products actually work? Anyone got a wind turbine that actually generates power? Can anyone give me a demo of a product that works?

I will happily wire my goolies to a wind turbine, confident that it won’t deliver a fatal electric shock – if anyone wants to arrange that. (It could be a good photo op) (Press release: South American fascist torturers are lowering their carbon footprint, with wind turbine driven electric shock torture racks….) I’m hoping to benchmark the reliability, or otherwise, of green products, and sell the story.

But don’t ask me when the deadline is. I don’t know yet.

Social media = punk?

I stumbled upon this neat video on the PR Disasters blog. It talks about the links between punk and social media and there was something about it that struck a cord with with me.

Meet the media: Lem Bingley, Incisive Media

Lem Bingley

I am pleased to introduced Lem Bingley for this week’s Meet the Media interview. He is the editor in chief of the Business Technology Group at   Incisive Media. The group’s publications are: Computing, V3.co.uk   (formerly VNUnet.com), BusinessGreen.com, CRN and its web site ChannelWeb.co.uk, and The Inquirer……in other words he is a busy boy.

Lem has provided an extremely insightful look into the changes to Computing and the recent V3 re-branding. He also has some interesting views on how social media is changing modern journalism.

Paul Stallard: Have you ever done any PR work and if yes what was the experience like?
Lem Bingley: My job involves shepherding the long-term reputation of the group’s different brands, so there’s an aspect of PR to it. I’ve written a few press releases along the way, and worked with proper PR professionals on internal and external messaging.

Last year we made some major changes to Computing both online and in print, which were not without risk. Good comms was a major factor in the success of that project. We explained the changes and the motivation behind them separately to each relevant constituency: readers, advertisers, sales staff, editorial staff and of course the PR   community. A poorly communicated message could have damaged the brand, but fortunately that didn’t happen. Thankfully the project strengthened Computing, as it was intended to do.

More recently we have rebranded VNUnet.com, which is now called V3.co.uk, and again we have worked hard to ensure that the change is understood as a part of an ongoing process of improvement and investment. Fortunately V3.co.uk is a great name – certainly easier to remember and to spell than VNUnet – so it makes the messaging easier.

Those were quite high-profile efforts, but we also do quieter comms – we have just soft-launched the Asia edition of BusinessGreen.com at http://www.businessgreen.asia/

I certainly have a greater respect for PR professionals as a result of this kind of experience, and a better understanding of all the hidden paddling required for serene and swan-like progress.

PS: How has the increase of social media affected traditional journalism?
LB: Personality is becoming more important in journalism. As a reader, it is becoming easier to follow the output of a writer you chime with, and to maintain that attachment if they happen to change jobs. This will alter the way we think about brands online.

What makes a viral video?

25 lttrs n th alphbt

I have expressed my love of viral videos over the past few months and will continue to post my favourites. That said Nick Emmel has written an interesting post on what makes a viral video.

Worth a read if you get five minutes.

Social media – Yo Mama

Yo mama

I was catching up on some blog reading this evening and saw this brilliant post that made me laugh out loud. The SEO Company has listed five ‘Yo mama’ jokes about social media.

At number one was “Yo mama so stupid that when I told her I was on digg, she asked if I needed a shovel.”

Classic. Worth a look/laugh.

Mood button

Mr Grumpy not Paul Stallard

Last week I spoke with Wendy Grossman, a journalist I hadn’t worked with before on an article she was producing for IT Expert magazine. As always I wanted to provide my client with a couple of examples of the journalist’s work so I ran a quick Google search and found her website.

I’m not sure how often it is updated but there was a feature which I really liked. There is a page where Wendy highlights what sort of mood she is in:

• Red = WATCH OUT!
• Yellow = Proceed at your own risk. Possibly safe.
• Blue = All calm. Here there be no dragons.
• Green = Green??! Not in the original specification. Meaning unknown.

Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if everyone did this?

Social PR Forum – 4 December

Social PR Forum

A conference which looks like it will be very interesting later this year is the Social PR Forum scheduled to take place on the 4th December at RIBA, London. The event is looking to bring together people from our industry to address the issues surrounding PR and the social media space, how they are impacting on each other and how PR professionals can relate and work effectively within the new challenges web 2.0 communication channels bring.

The speakers already look impressive, with my old friend Phil and Drew Benvie being speakers from the agency side I certainly won’t be missing as well as spokespeople from T Mobile, The British Heart Foundation and Asda also sure to be interesting.
 
The organisers of this event have kindly offered the readers of this blog with a discount code so you can get money off entrance to this forum. To secure your discount all you have to do is quote the code PaulS09 when registering either online or by phone (+44 (0) 117 321 8303).

The organisers list the events highlights as the following:
•  Learn from global PR companies who have successfully embraced social media
•  Understand what products and services you should be using, and how to use them well
•  Listen to top commentators and experts on their take on why social media can be effective in PR and why not to fear it
•  Learn how to seamlessly introduce social media into your way of thinking and into your employees
•  Listen to how award winning campaigns utilised the social space successfully
•  Understand how offical bodies view PR in the social media space
•  Network immediately with our first-class pre-show online meeting planner

Anyway, I hope to see you at the event in December and should you be interested in learning more about it please download the brochure.