New study looks at communicating the complex

How can you communicate complex issues clearly? This is the key question answered in the new "Complex to Clear: Managing Clarity in Corporate Communication" study by the University of St.Gallen's MCM Institute and the Global Alliance for PR and Communication Management. Download the study here.

What the media wants

The media want to cover your organization and its goings-on. Problem is, they have limited resources and need your help putting together a compelling story.

Press release or social media

Everybody hates writing press releases. They're usually dull, self-serving, full of insider speak, silly acronyms and when the news is really important, it leaks well in advance of the official document. What to do?

Crisis! And now?

In these times, there’s a crisis lurking round every corner. Whether it’s the threatened break up of the Euro, riots, the implosion of the News of the World, BP’s problems in the Gulf of Mexico, Toyota’s recalls or Thomas Cook struggling to meet its financial commitments, the unexpected way in which events unfold means there’s no excuse for failing to have a robust crisis communications plan in place. Here more.

Freebies for bloggers?

Christmas is coming, and some bloggers and journalists would like presents, although they may term this as a need for “products to review“. Should you do so? Read some smart thinking on this here.

Do's and don'ts of Facebook as PR Tactic

Facebook (800 mio users) has evolved into THE platform for communicators. With most digital PR campaigns now featuring Facebook components, best practices have emerged for increasing likes, engaging communities and managing customer service needs. Following are some do's and don'ts to help you make the most of Facebook for all of your communications initiatives. More here.

Journalists, PR executives explain the traits of talented PR pros

What is it that reporters want from PR people? With a healthy dose of anecdotes from PR agency executives and repor- ters sounding off on what they think are essential attributes. Read here.

PR trends for 2012

What are the trends for PR professionals? What will 2012 bring? It’s that time of year again! It’s time for the PR, communications, and marketing world to look at the challenges and opportunities ahead. It’s time we determine what’s in store for our businesses, our industry, and our way of working. More? Click here.

PR stunts, twelve good ones

A PR stunt is a daring or challenging feat to attract media attention. Pioneered by the likes of P.T. Barnum, and mastered by folks like Richard Branson, the stunt has become a tool to generate publicity—lots of it. So what can we learn from 12 of the most outrageous stunts? Let’s have a look.

Twitter drives media

PR Newswire teamed up with digital marketing platform Crowd Factory to analyze the activity surrounding thousands of press releases over a number of months. According to the research, 48 percent of press release sharing happens on Facebook and 37 percent on Twitter. However, each share on Twitter results in 30 percent more views. Infographic here.

Does Google change the business, once again

Competition from Twitter and Facebook? Google has revised its search algorithm to make query results more relevant and timely. Google reshapes itself into a real-time news feed. This puts even more pressure on PR practitioners to shift their own mindsets and adapt to a real-time web powered by search and social media. Read more.

To litigate is to communicate!

Litigation is a fact of corporate life. Whether your clients are defending accusations in an employment tribunal, protecting their brand or suing over a breach of contract, they will, at some point, need your help to deal with the many and varied PR issues that surround the legal process. More here.

Think twice before you press "Send"

A minor PR storm last week centred around a frustrated PR-executive who accidentally pressed “reply all”.

BrandLink Communications pitched a story to a blogger who wasn’t interested and said so in a, shall we say, sassy email. That should have been the end of that. However, the unnamed exec pressed “reply all” to the message and the following landed in blogger Jenny Lawson’s inbox: “What a f***ing b****!” – only without the asterisks. Before long, the world was following the exchange on Lawson’s blog.

While this is unfortunate, it does highlight a bigger problem within our industry. Desperate to generate publicity for their clients, many PR firms relentlessly pursue media to publish their stories and not all media have enough patience left to decline politely.

Tempers fray on both sides. Recently, the editor of a major Dutch trade publication got an earful from the PR-executive of one of the leading companies in his industry for even questioning the rationale behind an embargo on a media release. The editor was hardly to blame, as more and more media disregard embargoes altogether. TechCrunch have even made it their official policy. This puts those media who are willing to play by the rules at a significant disadvantage.

Meanwhile, letting of team in an email is never a good idea, for PR-execs or for journalists. You never know where on the web a hastily written email will end up.

More Schadenfreude here, and tips on how to avoid these embarrassing situations here.

PR firms number one source for media

A recent poll shows that journalists are increasingly relying on social media for their sources, but it’s still not as influential as PR. 500 journalists were polled and 47 percent said they use Twitter (up from 33 percent a year ago) and 35 percent use Facebook as a source (up from 25 percent a year ago).

Still, social media isn’t the first source —only four percent said they use Twitter, Facebook, or blogs as their first source in researching a story. The No. 1 resource that journalists in this study are using for sourcing was PR agencies, with a whopping 62 percent. More.

Measure For Measure. How to evaluate?

In media relations the standardised global currency still is 'advertising value'; every piece of PR coverage generated is equivalent to the value of that space as an advertising investment multi-plied by three. The rationale for this increase is that editorial or earned media is three times more credible than paid. Yet, it is smart to start to question this.

Read more here Hollis PR News

Largest survey in our industry

VMA Group, the specialist corporate communications, PR and investor relations executive recruiter, today revealed the results of the largest ever survey of financial services communications professionals. Quite a good read, with lots of valuable data. The result that strikes me most: only 14% of respondents concluded that communications and marketing functions should be merged. Read the full report here.

Use twitter for business. Yes, 140 characters is enough

You can use Twitter for business. Yes, most people just report they're out for a drink or a meeting, but it is possible to land projects, enhance your network and get the buzz on your company or product going by using Twitter. Sometimes 140 characters is enough. This article offers quite some inspiration.

The Age Of Spin Is Dead – Ogilvy PR Australia concludes

An overwhelming majority of Australian PR professionals think that the term "PR" will be dropped in the next decade as the role and nature of agencies and the discipline itself changes, a survey by Ogilvy PR, Australia's leading PR firm, has found.

The overall theme of the study was PR communications in 2021, and the responses showed that the biggest threat to the industry was the need to quantify and redefine the way PR outcomes are measured, while the "socialisation of brands" - the ability of companies to be seen as an integral part of a target audience's lives - was highlighted as the main role for PR in the future.

Ogilvy PR themselves have responded to their survey by announcing that they will stop measuring communications effectiveness by the 'Advertising Equivalient Value' in 2012.

The survey's infographics are well worth a look.

There is no excuse for bad seplling

A recent article on the BBC website argues that poor spelling can cost businesses millions of pounds.

A single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half. With so many Nigerian e-mail scams and phishing mails around, spelling is incredibly important to the credibility of a website. Social media may have relaxed the attitude to spelling mistakes in other areas of the Internet, a single error on your company's homepage or in an electronic newsletter can be a killer issue.

Getting the basics right is therefore very important. This blogger has three useful tips:

• Slow down
  
• Get some help
  
• Know your Kryptonite
  

To which we would like to add: never trust your spell checker. It can't tell you if you have misused a word, like using the wrong homonym (flare vs. flair), or inadvertently type the wrong word (like fry instead of try). There is no substitute for having documents read by a real person who has strong comprehension of grammar, usage and syntax in addition to spelling.

PS - This author is well aware of the existence of Muphry's Law, and is therefore sure that despite all his efforts, this blog post is sure to contain an error of its own.

CitySavvy wins two Corporate Engagement Awards

We won two awards in this week’s Corporate Engagement Awards 2011. Silver in the ‘Best community involvement in sponsorship activity’ category and bronze in the ‘Best arts-centred corporate sponsorship activity’ award.

For the first time the Corporate Engagement Awards are presented by Communicate Magazine. The awards are designed to recognise the benefits of corporate partnerships, sponsorship and philanthropy and provide a benchmark for excellence in corporate engagement.

The two award are for: the ING Discerning Eye. This sponsorship is an integral part of ING’s wider CSR activities involving the arts.

E&Y links CFO's to media

Ernst & Young just published a study in their 'Master Finance' series on the CFO and the media.

The question: 'Back seat or center stage?' More CFOs are talking on a broader range of topics across more varied media channels than before. How are CFOs meeting these changing demands?

Is the Internet making journalism better?

This debate over at the Economist is a must-read!

IPO and tablet ... go digital

I see the words 'IPO' and 'tablet' in one sentence and I am interested. In this article all info on how digital will indeed be the platform. Forget media, be a medium yourself.

Beware of hijacked media – the changing language of marketing

The traditional framework of ‘paid’, ‘owned’ and ‘earned’ media is outdated, according to a recent report by McKinsey & Company (requires registration).

Two new media types need to be added: ‘sold media’, where a company invites other marketers to place their content on its owned media, and ‘hijacked media’, where a company’s asset or campaign is taken hostage by those who oppose it.

The emergence of newer media means that consumers are engaging more often in real-time conversations, particularly on social networks and other digital platforms. Helping consumers to express themselves is a scary and significant reversal of the control marketers and PR professionals have traditionally tried to maintain over brands.

The pitfalls of the English language

Europeans may think they know how to speak English, but they don’t. Marketeers seem to have a particularly hard time translating slogans into English (“Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”), but businessmen and politicians have made their fair share of mistakes as well.

But while the English might cringe at the occasional pidgin English of their European colleagues, Europeans are fascinated by the English habit of, well, not quite saying what you mean. For example, how many non-Brits could decode the irony (and literary allusion) which lies behind the expression “up to a point”, which is used to mean “no, not in the slightest”?

For anyone baffled by these differences, this handy translation guide has been doing the rounds on the Internet.

How to be digital

For many financial communications professionals social media is still a slippery slope. Especially for listed companies how to deal with the 'digital world' is not easy. Here some blog pointers.

Getting the story right is just as important as ever

The advent of social media and the rise in viral marketing has led to firms scrambling for a social media strategy, often at the expense of mainstream PR. But the basic principle of PR – to develop a newsworthy story and share it with those who can provide valid outside endorsement and via targeted distribution - ring true in both worlds. Successful PR campaigns will be based on the integration of the two disciplines.

A study by George Washington University found that journalists increasingly use social media to research stories. However, they trust these sources less than traditional ones.

Don Bates, founding director of the GWU Strategic Public Relations Programme, says: “Social media provides a wealth of new information for journalists, but getting the story right is just as important as ever. As PR professionals increasingly utilise social media as a means of communication, they have an even greater responsibility than before to ensure the information they provide journalists with is accurate and timely.”

Meanwhile media consumption is also becoming more diversified, with people getting their news from many different sources. In an attempt to filter this information, people are looking for authoritative sources and they find those at content rich sites. According to a study from the Online Publishers Association, most people who are online spend the majority of their time at these content rich sites.

Therefore communicating with authority and relevance is a must if you are to reach your target market.

Avoid, avert, acknowledge?

Anything is better than 'no comment'. Companies struggle with answering questions from the press and other stakeholders when asked to explain the behaviour of company management. Communicate Magazine printed a good article on how to answers questions on tax evasion. CitySavvy was quoted.

No, they're just rumours

In February The Economist announced an upcoming article in the Journal of Marketing Research by David Dubois, Derek D. Rucker and Zakart L. Tormala. These scientists have proved that when a company denies a rumour, it only makes the rumour stronger. Instead of denying false rumours, a company should put out a stream of positive messages about itself. Read the study here.

Thanks Banking Technology

Articles like this one pop-up every once in a while. And that's good. Journalists are the real clients and only when PR professionals understand how they think and work they are able to assist and advise properly.