Who delivers the training
I am Chris Norton. I have been running social media and content marketing campaigns since 2007, and running social media training since 2009, which means I was teaching people to use Facebook for business before most of them had an account. I co-authored Share This Too, the official social media handbook of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and I lectured at Leeds Beckett University. I write Norton Notes, which has been listed among the top PR blogs in the UK, and I co-host the Embracing Marketing Mistakes podcast with my co-director Will Ockenden.
My specialisms are online crisis management, integrated PR, social media strategy, video production and content marketing. Outside work it is Thai-boxing, football and DJ-ing dance music, which is more relevant than it sounds, because I have spent twenty years explaining technology to people who did not ask for it.
What our clients have got out of it
Training is easy to sell and hard to measure, so here are three campaigns where the numbers are ours and we can show the working.
For Martin House Children’s Hospice we built The Build, which generated 219 placements and 161.4 million reach, and won the Charity and Not for Profit Award at the PRCA DARE Awards in 2026.
For the law firm Freeths we ran a LinkedIn Live programme that drew 1,100 attendees and around 950 leads from a single sequence.
For the cleaning brand Astonish we produced 115 pieces of coverage in six months, 90 per cent of which carried a backlink.
Those are agency campaigns rather than training outcomes, and I would rather be straight about the distinction. The point is that the person standing at the front has done the thing recently, at scale, with a client watching.
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Who we have trained
We have delivered training and campaigns for the NHS, Yorkshire Water, Transport for the North, Savills, Skipton Building Society, Interflora, Watches of Switzerland, Sealy, Emerald Publishing, Huthwaite International, ENGIE, WWF, Alzheimer’s Society and Terrence Higgins Trust, alongside universities, local authorities and B2B manufacturers across the UK.
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What our clients say
Prohibition holds an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 from 18 verified client reviews on Clutch. These five cover our agency work rather than the training on its own, which is rather the point, because the training is built on the same work.
“We were impressed by their depth of knowledge in a rapidly changing environment.”
Kian Scott-Loach, Head of Digital, Terrence Higgins Trust, February 2026
“They’re a bunch of friendly people who feel like a natural extension of the marketing team.”
David Sharples, Communications Manager, Black Sheep Brewery, January 2025
“When Prohibition says they’ll do something by a certain date, they get it done.”
Marketing Manager, Feather Down Farms, May 2025
“Prohibition has put a lot of care and hard work into the project.”
Maria Kirby, Head of Digital, commercial law firm, July 2025
“They’ve been impeccable from start to finish.”
Nigel Tarn, Marketing Manager, Fentimans, June 2022
Awards, accreditation and recognition
Prohibition is a member agency of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and part of the Worldcom Public Relations Group, which we joined in August 2025 and which gives our clients access to 110 offices across 45 countries.
Prohibition has won more than 45 industry awards. These are the ones I would point at.
The awards
- PRCA DARE Awards, 2026. Winner of the Charity and Not for Profit Award, for The Build with Martin House Children’s Hospice. The campaign produced 219 placements and 161.4 million reach.
- PRCA DARE Grand Prix, 2023. Winner of the national Digital and Social Media Award, for Black Sheep Brewery and the Drink Cask Beer campaign.
- PRmoment North, 2025. Double finalist, for our work with Potter Space and Yorkshire Cancer Research.
- CIPR PRide, 2022. Gold, for the Carvela by Kurt Geiger campaign.
- CIPR Best Integrated Campaign, 2019. Awarded for an integrated consumer campaign.
- CIPR Outstanding Public Relations Consultancy. Awarded to the agency as a whole.
- Prolific North Awards. Best PR Agency in the North.
Collecting the PRCA DARE Award in 2026 for The Build, with Martin House Children’s Hospice.
Our CIPR membership
I have been a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations since I was a student, which is now more than twenty years. I write for the CIPR magazine Influence, and I sat on the CIPR committee for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire for more than six years, advising it on social media strategy. Several of the wider team are CIPR members as well, and our course content is mapped to CIPR CPD.
How much does social media training cost?
A half day for up to six people is £1,200 and a full day is £1,800, both excluding VAT. Additional attendees are £250 each. Longer programmes are quoted after a scoping call, because the useful version of this training depends entirely on what your team already knows and what you need them to be able to do afterwards.
We deliver at your offices, at our Leeds studio, or remotely, and the cost is the same either way. We will tell you on that call if we think you do not need us. You can see the full range of formats and levels if you want to work out what suits your team first.
Common questions about our training
Do you travel outside Leeds?
Yes, we deliver across the UK and run virtual sessions for distributed teams. Most of our work is in Leeds, London and Manchester.
How up to date is the course material?
We rewrite the content every quarter. The current version covers the 2026 changes to organic reach across the main platforms, AI-assisted content workflows, and how AI search results are changing what social content has to do.
Can you train beginners and experienced managers together?
We would rather you did not. Mixed-ability rooms mean half of the group is bored, so we usually split it into two shorter sessions instead.
Do you offer a certificate?
Yes, every attendee gets a certificate of completion, and the content is mapped to CIPR CPD.
What size group works best?
Between six and twelve people. Above twelve it becomes a lecture and people stop asking the questions that make it worth doing.
How do we get started?
Tell us what your team already does and where it is stuck, and we will put a programme together. Contact us to set up a call.
Questions we get asked
Who actually delivers the training?
Chris Norton, who founded Prohibition PR, leads most sessions. Everyone who trains for us also runs campaigns for clients, so the examples on screen are current work rather than case studies from a slide library.
Are you a training company or an agency?
An agency. Prohibition PR runs social media, PR and content campaigns, and the training came out of that work. It is why we can show you what happened on a real account rather than a hypothetical one.
How long have you been running social media training?
Since 2009. More than 400 courses and workshops for business owners, marketers and communications teams in that time.
Where are you based and where do you deliver?
Leeds, at Victoria Wharf on Sovereign Street. We deliver at your offices anywhere in the UK, at our Leeds studio, or live online.
What does a course cost?
A half day is £1,200 and a full day is £1,800, both for up to six people and both excluding VAT. Each extra person is £250.
Are you set up for public sector procurement?
Yes. Purchase orders, insurance certificates and supplier forms are routine, and we work with public sector and regulated clients.
