Reputation Management in Black & White

5 05 2009

This Thursday (7th April) I will be presenting on the “PR Challenges of the Social Web,” at the KMP Digitata & How Do Seminar in Manchester.  I will look at how reputations can be affected, how reputations are built and lost and how you can manage your brand’s reputation through the use of PR and social media.

Ever since the explosion of social media and the revolution of social networks, companies no longer have control about what is said about their brand.  Social media is highly influential and the use of blogs, online communities, twitter and messageboards mean that people (consumers) are empowered to say whatever they want about brands and companies. These sources of information are incredibly powerful tools, and have a great deal of credibility in the eyes of other consumers.

The other presenters will be Jon Keefe of KMP and Simon Rogers, of Market Sentinel.  The event takes place at the Manchester Digital Development Agency starting at 9.30am and finishing at 1.30pm.

Click to book tickets 


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Categories : Social Web

About a Book

17 03 2009

book-coverThis blog is a companion to the book ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’.  It will be published in a couple of weeks.  Last week as a first time author, I got to see my book in printed, hard copy form for the first time.   For me at least, writing the book was a long held ambition, I found myself on garden leave with some free time but even when the book was accepted for publication it seemed unreal.  There are various stages that make the unreal, real; the point when I stumbled across it on Amazon was one, but getting hold of the physical manifestation was the real milestone.  

If you have a book struggling to get out or you are in an early stages of the process of getting your first book out here are a few things that I wasn’t prepared for;

  • The publisher decides what it looks like, as a first time author you have no experience of what works and your views or wishes won’t count for much.
  • You write, edit, re-read and proof read.  An author will read their own book four or five times in its entirity before publication.   
  • Reading your own book when it is printed sometimes feels like you are reading someone else’s book.  I suspect that in the months between submitting and publication you start to forget some of the 60,000+ words.  I really felt when I dipped in to the published copy that some of it was new to me (and I found it interesting!)  
  • When you’ve finished writing, the writing doesn’t stop, there are blogs, guest posts and articles that all need to be written.  Time consuming but if you were never sure whether you were a writer or not, the confirmation is right there.  

If you are interested in reading it too it’s available to order from the publisher Kogan Page and from Amazon.


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Categories : Social Web

Celebrities, Stars and their New PR

5 02 2009

Five months ago I posted a piece called The New Twitterati on PR Media Blog.   It was inspired by my discovery that tennis player Andrew Murray @andy_murray  had started to talk to his fans via Twitter.  This was long before  Stephen Fry @stephenfry  or Johnny-come-lately, Jonathan Ross @wossy had started to eulogise about the microblog fad.  It is clear now that Andy was blazing a trail.  I suggested at the time that we should “stand by for a rush to join the new ‘Twitterati’.  It won’t be long before we have a flood of singers, sporting heroes and stars of the screen, sharing stuff”.   That rush is turning into a deluge.   Stephen Fry is the third most popular person on Twitter and Hollywood couple Demi Moore @mrskutcher  and Ashton Jutcher @aplusk signed up a couple of weeks ago.   Tour de France hero Lance Arrmstrong @lancearmstrong is just outside the top ten most popular and Britney’s entourage fill out the 140 charaters for her…although she claims to do a few herself.    Even legendary crooner and definite non Gen-Y-er Neil Diamond @NeilDiamond is hanging out.

Twitter only really works for those that use it themselves and engage directly.  It works best if it is used as a conversation channel in the way that Fry uses it not simply as a broadcast tool (take note DJ Chris Moyles). 

What is fascinating is that it provides a real route for stars to talk to their fans – direct.  No PR people or journalists in between.  They can do it right there with no advice.   Some will do it brilliantly and use the medium to boost their profile.  Others?  Well…there may be a few egg shells to be delicately traversed and even the odd banana skin.   I can’t wait.


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Categories : PR, Twitter

Are Bloggers Journalists?

22 01 2009

If blogging is citizen journalism then bloggers are citizen journalists, which by definition is a form of journalism.  Blogger relations might then have much in common with media relations.

I argued this case or something much akin to it in a lecture I gave for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in May 2008 at Leeds Metropolitan University.  

I had pursued this argument before with little opposition but when the Q&A section came round my argument hit a wall.  Richard Bailey, an academic blogger and university lecturer at Leeds took me to task on this view and Chris Norton Account Director at Wolfstar supported his assertion that blogger relations and media relations are very different. 

The two points of view can be broadly summarised thus:

The case for the prosecution

  • Bloggers don’t like and seldom use press releases
  • Bloggers are generally of independent mind and blog because they want to express their own views and opinions and not those of others
  • Blogs are not edited in the traditional sense and therefore can not be considered to be media in the conventional sense
  • Many blogs simply don’t have an audience
  • We have to engage with bloggers in a different way involving more dialogue and discussion

The case for the defense

  • Journalists don’t much like press releases either and never did.
  • I’ve met some pretty independent minded journalists in my time.  If in doubt read Nick Davies’s excellent ‘Flat Earth News’.  He’s man of independent mind (although he describes others that are not). 
  • The difference between blogs and ‘traditional media’ on line is becoming blurred.  The process of editing creates authority but it does not mean that blogs can’t be authoritative.  

I modified my view after listening to both Richard and Chris but I do believe there is a significant amount of common ground in how we approach the most influential bloggers and how we have deal with journalists who fit the more traditional mould.  I imagine however that the debate will run and run.


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Categories : Blogs and blogging, Journalism, Newspapers

Beginner’s Guide to Blogging #2

13 01 2009

You have found a Blog platform and you have registered a blog.  You have also found a design template that you are happy with.  You might want to explore which features of the template you can adapt and alter.   You can often add graphics to the headline or background and this is a good way of  making a template based blog look a bit more individual.   Have a look at the widgets and see which ones will work best.  Have a look at your favourite blogs to get some ideas about which widgets to use.  Don’t worry to much about changing the look and feel of your blog even if it is ‘live’.  At this point it won’t be getting any traffic.  Work on the design and layout until you are happy.

Make sure you get the basics right.  There will be no separate proof reader and no grammar checker.  If you aren’t good at these things get someone to check your posts before you publish.  Most blog platforms have spell checkers, use them and proof read your work.  A blog with spelling mistakes or poor grammar will be the kiss of death, even if the quality of the writing is good.

The importance of the quality still can not be underestimated and it is our job to make the material engaging.  Some people find this easier than others but it can be learnt.  There are many blogs out there created by technically brilliant people who can’t or won’t write in a coherent fashion.

If it doesn’t come naturally then practise.  Read as much as you can learn what works and take advice from others.  If that doesn’t work then partner up with someone that can write.   If the content is poor then the blog is too.


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Categories : Blogs and blogging, PR

Beginner’s Guide to Blogging #1

12 01 2009

Blogging seems daunting for those who have never done it before.  The easiest way to get started is to use an online blogging platform like Blogger or WordPress.  Both are free to use, easy and need the  minimum set-up.  This blog uses the online version of WordPress and you can uses the links at the bottom of this page to find our more about how to use WordPress.

For Blogger go to www.blogger.com and click on the ‘Create Your Blog Now’ banner.  Use an e-mail address to create a Google account, this takes no more than a minute and click the ‘Create Your Blog Now’ banner at the bottom of the page.   Fill in a title and create a web address in the box below.   You then select a design template and that’s about it.  Well not quite, you have to add some content.  With both WordPress and Blogger is a text editor into which you can type directly and you can add photographs by clicking on the icon on screen.  It would be quite possible for you to have a blog online within 5 minutes of starting the process.

The ease of all of this means that quality sometimes gets forgotten.  Blogs don’t have editors and there is no quality threshold that the blog has to pass through in order to be published.   We can publish what we like.   Without editors, bloggers are solely responsible for the output.  The one measure that remains is that of popularity and readership.  If the blog isn’t good very few will read it, none of them will come back and they will recommend it to no one.  Never underestimate this.  User generated content has accelerated the growth of the Internet, which passed the milestone of one trillion unique pages at some point during the middle of 2008.  With so much out there most of it is going to be ignored.  If you want an interested audience for what you are publishing and the content has to be of real interest.  It may be obvious but search a few random blogs and you will see how often people forget.


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Categories : Blogs and blogging

New Rules of Engagement

4 12 2008

 

The rules of engagement for PR people have changed with the arrival of user generated content.  If media owners no longer entirely control the content then the principles of PR must change.  The Guardian newspaper has been a prime movers in adapting its product on line.  The recent attacks in Mumbai proved that at the outset there will always be individuals closer to the action than journalists.  The Guardian has made it possible for these individuals to add material and for it to be viewed alongside the work of more conventional journalists.  The commentisfree element of the site the newspaper also permits anyone to add their individual views and opinions.  The Guardian receives over 10,000 postings a day to their site.   This ceding of control by papers means that PR people need to extend their contacts beyond those with journalists. 

Brand rules have also changed.  The first wave of corporate websites were essentially electronic brochures but today the most successful corporate websites engage with their users.  A travel operator that sees the Internet as merely an extension of the holiday brochure with beautiful pictures, flowery copy and no consumers comment will be doomed to ever dwindling site traffic.   Any operator in the sector will also be aware that sites like Tripadvisor play a key role in the holiday booking process for many travellers and that is where the conversations are taking place.


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Categories : Media evolution, Newspapers, User Generated Content


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