Tag: online PR

I am proud to announce that I will be speaking at the CIPR’s “Share This Live” Social Media Conference 2013.  Last year I wrote a quick blog post on Share This, a book that I recommend all PR professionals should try and read in order to stay up to speed with developments in the industry. The book contained practical advice from 20 experienced practitioners on how to move into digital PR from a number of different perspectives.  After, I had written the article I was then contacted by a friend of mine, Stephen Waddington the editor and one of the ... Read more

I read an article in PR Week last week that made my blood boil, I would have written about it sooner but if I am honest we are flat out at the moment and I failed to get my thoughts onto the blog. The article stated the following: PR professionals are among the worst offenders for exploiting interns, according to research by campaign group Intern Aware. Ten cent of the 100 firms reported to HM Revenue and Customs for investigation are either PR agencies or companies advertising PR roles. For the last three months I have been lecturing at Leeds Metropolitan University ... Read more

Google is still the master of search, the centre of the internet and the go-to site when you’re in need of whatever information you require. So, as we sit at the cusp of a huge new Google update, a giant change, one that could turn your business or client’s site into a Google flop overnight, what is it we as PR professionals and like-minded business people need to know to stay at the top of the rankings? For those who don’t know Google has two furry, feathery friends, Penguin and Panda. Google Panda is a search results ranking algorithm that ... Read more

Last week’s Twitter fiasco at HMV gave us all a clear demonstration of how brands should not to act in a crisis. After the sad news that huge numbers of workers were told that they were being made redundant, angry employees, who were still able to access the brand’s Twitter account, used the site to let the world know exactly what was happening to them and this caused huge embarrassment for their bosses and the administrators. The company has of course since deleted the tweets, but in letting the incident take place at all, they have created a mini-PR disaster ... Read more

I was shocked to receive an email this week from Pearson in Practice about its PR Apprenticeship Scheme, which I have been talking to them about for a while now. You might remember I wrote about this a couple of months back after visiting the Yorkshire apprentices and being very impressed. At Prohibition we have a dedicated internship programme and we work with a number of the local Universities to support our students and give them good quality experience. So I was genuinely interested to see how we could help even younger people that were keen to enter the industry ... Read more

The terribly sad news that another well-known high street retailer was to close its doors was announced last week. Jessops a regular on UK high streets for several decades has gone to the wall and its 187 stores finally closed their doors last night. The sad news about this story is a lot of people that worked for this organisation really loved what they did – selling digital cameras. Many of their staff seemed to pride themselves on delivering a much better service to their customers, giving them more professional and personable advice. However, with the rise and rise of ... Read more

Unless you have been hidden under a rather large rock over the last twelve months you can’t have missed the splash that the Official CIPR Social Media Handbook “Share This” has made in the PR community. As I live in the freezing cold north of England and my agency’s HQ is in Leeds I don’t tend to get to as many conferences these days as I would like and so I read a lot of books and online media on digital marketing. I bought “Share This” a while back because I wanted to find a book that offered practical advice ... Read more

Facebook’s rise and rise is well documented and continually coveted everywhere from The Times through to the highest profile social media bloggers. It is always lauded as the best platform since sliced bread however I have a few gripes and I just don’t understand why they haven’t fixed them already. Facebook – The Advertising Platform I understand why, although irritating, how important Facebook advertisements are as part of a seeding strategy and making people aware of a Facebook campaign. However, all you need to do if you really want Facebook to get on your nerves is have a play with ... Read more

Last week, I was having multiple platform conversations with my old colleague and friend Stuart Bruce, we were chatting on Skype, Google+, Twitter and email. It led us to discuss Google+ in a little more detail. I have been impressed with how Google has developed Google+ as it has got some truly brilliant features and it keeps adding more and more but I wasn’t still convinced about how useful it actually was as I have always thought of it as a social media ghost town full of Google employees and SEO consultants. The truth is it still is a bit ... Read more

Today I attended an event which was organised and presented by a number of young PR apprentices from the Leeds area. I went to see how good they were and how the scheme worked in practice and if I am honest I was very impressed. I sit on the CIPR committee here in the North and this is because I strongly believe in helping to develop young people who want to work in PR, which is why I was so interested in this relatively new concept. At Prohibition we have a dedicated intern-programme that we run to help develop local ... Read more