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February 2nd, 2012 by Katie Swan

Video killed the radio star

This week a group of us at Speed undertook a task to make a video in two and a half hours (including editing!). So they’re not going to win any Oscars, but we’re pretty pleased with our video tips in ‘Video PR: How To’ and search engine optimisation tips in ‘Speed’s SEO kitchen’.

Our task highlighted just what you can do with video content and how you can make your message more memorable.  If a picture is worth a thousand words then video has the potential to pack an impressive punch.

According to recent research by Google’s DoubleClick, rich media generates somewhere between a 400% and 700% increase in viewer engagement and response rates compared to static content. It’s no surprise when you can condense pages of text into a short snappy video of a minute or so.

Not only this, but it can also help cultivate your online community. The number of online video users is expected to double to more than 1 billion people by 2015. So, there’s certainly a captive audience, looking to consume and engage with video content. And with video is becoming increasingly favourable in the search engine rankings, it’s well worth investing in some eye-catching videos for your website or blog.

TMIM has featured a video series looking at using video beyond conventional public relations so that it generates leads as well.  In terms of PR, video can really bring company to life and set your company apart from the crowd. Overall it gives you license to deliver your content in a much more creative way.

But the smart thing to do is create videos that both enhance your reputation and generate leads. Existing and new audiences can be reached through a medium that has engagement at its heart, so why not make the most of it and deliver compelling content that features real life case studies that demonstrate the benefits your business brings, with personable spokespeople that can deliver the key messages?

Engaging video content presents a more credible view of your company and customer endorsements will boost your reputation and result the all-important sales.

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January 31st, 2012 by georginaheaume

Cloud Expo Europe – The reality from the buzz

Last week, the IT industry braced itself for one of the most important events of this year. As I arrived, there was a clear buzz on the event floor and as the show went on, it was evident that cloud computing had proven last year’s critics wrong and was more than simply ‘marketing hype’.

As expected, the event saw a number of major cloud services being launched with cloud infrastructure management software and services company 6fusion, announcing the release of its next generation UC6 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) federation platform; and secure cloud hosting company Firehost, revealing the launch of its European cloud. However, the real meat to the event was hearing IT experts approaching cloud computing as a maturing technology, demonstrating quality high-end and hybrid cloud services, and debating how it weighs up against competitive alternatives.

Moving beyond product and technical features, it finally feels like the ‘cloud haze’ for many vendors has cleared and they are refocusing on the real issues, the business benefits and what role cloud has as part of the wider business strategy. As with any trend, the issue for many vendors now is how they will differentiate themselves as aggressive competition rises. Unsurprisingly, the datacentre market was one that was out in force at the show, with key players Equinix, Interxion and Telehouse all launching new cloud offerings and initiatives.

Steep competition amongst datacentres has been spurred by advancements in virtualisation frameworks from VMware, Red Hat, Citrix and Microsoft. Those who attended the show with a clear objective to find a solution to make that transition to the cloud will have left with more questions than answers, due to the sheer number of new and sophisticated services now being made available in the cloud.

What last week confirmed for the IT industry is that as the cloud market matures, some aspects will become clearer but as cloud enters the phase of reality, competition from hybrid and traditional technologies will still place a vital role in business.

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November 25th, 2011 by samevans

Speed Budapest 2011: Being the best at business in Budapest

Speed are currently in Budapest, Hungary where we’re battling it out in teams to achieve the best optimised blog content possible, competing for the crowning spot at the top of Google’s ranking for the search ‘Speed Budapest’.

Aside from the thermal bathing and goulash sampling punctuating this challenge, we’ve been keen to take into consideration the native business etiquette to ensure that we’re at our very best at all times. Well, I can only speak for the boys team here! When being the best for business in Budapest, it’s good to keep the following guidelines in mind:

1) Do not remove your suit jacket without asking permission
The boys at Speed are a highly refined bunch of gents, so this comes naturally to us.

2) Business is conducted slowly, Hungarians are skilled negotiators
Slowly? But we’re called Speed! Negotiation, however, is all part and parcel of communications, which is right up our street.

3) Business cards should have one side translated into Hungarian
Yep, and last names should come before first names, you should include your degree details and the year your company was founded. Just like this!

Evans Sámuel
Kapcsolatszervezési Szaktanácsadó
Tanulmányi végzettség: Angol nyelv és irodalom
Gyorsasági Kommunikáció, London, Egyesült Királyság
2009
2011 novemberében látogatást tett Budapesten.

4) Hungarians are very detail-oriented and want to understand everything before reaching an agreement
Speed came to Budapest armed with information packs compiled by the incredible Sonia. Maps, flight details, the lot. Not a detail was missed.

5) Deals in Hungary cannot be finalised without a lot of eating, drinking and entertaining
I can’t see this being too much of a problem…

20111125-155349.jpg

Check out some of our other blogs from this trip – here, here and here.
You can follow our Budapest trip on Twitter at #speedbudapest
Hajrá fiúk csapata! (Boys team to win!)

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November 9th, 2011 by Rebecca Gregory

Economic fatigue: Small Business Complex (and a cup of tea)


A Nice Hot Cup Of Tea

Image by Dr Craig via Flickr

It must be tiring for all those small to medium-sized businesses out there. Since the dawn of this recession economic experts have been saying that these businesses are the driving factors behind economic recovery and employment.

To quote Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange: “Companies that employ between ten and 250 people represent 12pc of companies but 36pc of economic contribution. This is where jobs will come from, not blue chips, and not Government. It’s the only sector that is going to work towards [reducing] unemployment.”

Yet, they get ignored again and again. The latest bad news is that credit easing threatens to ignore the smaller businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is warning that Osborne’s plans to buy corporate bonds in preparation for setting up a SMB bond market “would miss the very smallest of businesses”.

Yep, you’ve got it. The businesses that are most likely to positively impact employment figures, are most in need of funds and most likely to be refused funds. It’s enough to give small businesses a complex.

Programmes like Project Merlin, the Enterprise Finance Guarantee, and these latest plans aren’t enough. Instead, the FSB wants the government to be “creative”, “bold” and “innovative”. (Much like the entrepreneurs and small businesses it is seeking to support.) With banks being squeezed and restricting their lending to small businesses, and entrepreneurs afraid to approach banks, these ‘saviours’ of our economy are going to have to turn elsewhere. That elsewhere could be alternative lending – read this blog by Jos White (client) Do we really need banks anymore? to learn more.

On the plus side, at least their (the small businesses, that is, not the banks) plight is being recognised by a wide range of experts rather than the vocal few. Even if current solutions don’t go as far as some would like, let’s hope that with enough lobbying and consultation from these various parties some positive news will result.

In the meantime, small businesses will continue to struggle. But, let’s be very British about it and adopt the Downton Abbey approach to more bad news [paywall]: cup of tea, anyone?

And possibly even a biscuit.

 

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August 31st, 2011 by Rebecca Gregory

Gender disparity, quotas and childcare – old news?

Userpage icon for supporting gender equality.

Image via Wikipedia

Something to get the argumentative juices flowing in the morning – gender pay disparity continues in the UK. A Q&A (with me).

Are you aghast and shocked by this? No. More resigned, and the fact that male senior execs earn over £10k more than their female counterparts is incredibly disappointing.

On an up note – at least there are women in senior positions, right?! Absolutely – progress has been made. Or has it? Female execs are more likely to be made redundant than male execs (4.5% vs. 3%). Dare I voice it – it would be interesting to know of that 4.3% of redundancies of female execs, what percentage were part time or parents. But that’s me just being crazy; that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a redundancy decision. It’s illegal for a start.

What’s the answer – quotas? It’s a toughie. If we look to Scandinavia, they have quotas for female representation at board level – and it works. Look at their thriving economy.

That’s it! We should look toward a country based on socialist ideals? Maybe so, but we can’t ignore the cultural differences between us, as these certainly impact business culture. For example, in Sweden, maternity/paternity is split equally between the father and the mother, and is compulsory for each. We are no way near that type of equality – I think most CEOs here would laugh in the face of such a suggestion. By contrast, in the UK (I’m making a general statement here) paternity leave is a miserly two weeks at below pay. Most new fathers I know found it more economical just to take holiday leave. Then there’s the cost of childcare issue. In the UK it can be prohibitive – see news today that the cost of going to work outweighs the incoming salary. (And yes, I know many gender equality think tanks and women will be indignant at this (old) argument – why should we be defined by our children, etc. Yet, when was the last time you saw a part-time dad be made redundant?)

Back to quotas – yay or nay?

As I say, it’s a toughie. Generally I think that, no, it’s not ideal to enforce quotas. The argument that all people should achieve something on their own merit is a sound one. The question is whether there are unconscious (or indeed, conscious) barriers in place within businesses preventing equal career progression*. Pay disparity, higher risk of redundancy at the top, and fewer female execs as role models (there are many female CEOs of FTSE companies to look up to, yet very few are actually from the UK. Check out the FT’s Women at the Top – top 50 businesswomen from 2010), could make it an uphill battle for high achieving women.

So, no quotas and we’re not a socialist structure, what do we do?

Why, thanks for asking. I agree with the expert pundits – it’s about transparency and monitoring. All businesses need to monitor career progression of their staff to ensure that they are promoting and paying people equality. This is all about structured line management procedures, and internal monitoring. Yes, it might seem a hassle at first – but once in place it’s fairly straightforward. And, the benefits to the business will be enormous – think of the talent that is being otherwise ignored!

 

Ultimately, we are living in a diverse society and our workforce needs to reflect this – be it gender or ethnicity. All individuals need to be treated equally when it comes to pay and career progression. Only with internal monitoring can we know that this is being achieved, and only with transparency can businesses be held up as being a truly equal organisation.

*To find out your own unconscious bias it’s worth taking five minutes to take this online test from Race for Opportunity: Know Yourself.  You might be in for a surprise!

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May 31st, 2011 by Estelle Douine

When marketing crosses the line…

‘Ethics’ is one of these terms that will always be hard to define. Yes there is an Oxford dictionary definition and of course, everyone seems to agree on the most extreme cases – the ones that are truly wrong or right – but there are still a handful of examples that fall in the place that is just a tiny bit above or below the line.

Coca-Cola’s repositioning is the perfect example: not unethical textbook speaking but a bit wrong nonetheless.

Like many other brands, Coca-Cola understood a long time ago that mothers are the key to families’ heart – that is ‘purse’ in marketing language. And what a better way of reaching their ‘heart’ than by telling them that their family mealtimes will taste better with Coke?

The new TV ads will feature a nice 1950’s family meal and when glasses of Coke are poured, rabbits, grass and animated flowers appear.

This is clever and obviously well-executed. And who wouldn’t like to see rabbits and animated flowers in their living-room?

Rest assure though that Coca-Cola is actively involved in a number of programmes to promote healthy eating and physical activity – but can we really hide everything under social responsibility campaigns?

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May 10th, 2011 by Sophie Hodgson

We need a new attitude

So much blog fodder from last night’s BCSEntrepreneurs Inagural Storm event that it’s hard to pick one thing really to focus on.

The role of government was much debated, but to my mind that panel wasn’t really taken to task. A lot of people talked how they could facilitate much needed connections but cultural change wasn’t really tackled.

A lot of attendees over tea and coffee stressed the importance of a change in terms how we tolerate failure, which is inevitable. Here in the UK if you fail, you’re doomed. But in the US entrepreneurs are championed and encouraged to try again. And it’s Chinese tenacity and tolerance of risk that has seen its economy rise to become a super power.

Both @evarley and @mikebutcher touched on this topic, but it would have been good to understand how tolerance of risk and failure is being addressed both by the Government and the likes of Cap Gemini.

Much is happening to help technology entrepreneurs but that can only bring limited change. As a nation we need to be OK with failure, be prepared to take risks and ultimately be braver if we’re to truly get ‘tech city’ off the ground and working across the country.

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April 26th, 2011 by Helen Beavis

WEREN’T THE 90S FABULOUS SWEETIE, HUH, HUH?

We left off with the formidable Bill Jones giving us a glimpse insight into the world of PR in the 80s. Like any industry PR has gone through its hey-days.  Was the 90’s a hey-day decade? From my perspective it thrived on personal relationships – and as someone who generally loves meeting people and the entertaining side of the profession it suited me fine.  Whilst every decade brings a new and exciting challenge to us PRs, as a mid-90s child in the business I remember, whilst the budgets were more generous, PR was still very much seen as the poor relation to other marketing disciplines, namely advertising, with clients not really understanding its true value.  Until the brand got into a crisis and then it was worth its weight in gold.

So whilst we knew how to party well, which of course brought its commercial and financial rewards for the PROs with spark, we were constantly having to prove ourselves as strategic partners to marketing directors whose boards needed to see direct correlations between spend and sales.  They seemed to forget the job of reputation management, but of course we seemed obsessed by AVE and ROI against that…which frankly nowadays is completely redundant.  The rise of the digital age has brought the reputation of brands and businesses to the fore and hence PR is now coming back into its own – especially for those who truly understand PR’s ability to influence.

Accountability is key, and much more today than yesteryear.  The tools are much more sophisticated, the level of knowledge from the outset has to be much more relevant, but the determination and lust to succeed is just the same.  It’s just understanding what’s required at this moment and how your skills can add value to a modern and fast-moving communications sector.

I loved the 90s and wouldn’t change the discipline of processes, accountability, socialising and defending the cause.  It’s stood me in good stead to take on the greater responsibilities that are required today.  The landscape has changed but the fundamentals of a good PR haven’t strayed far, darling!

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April 20th, 2011 by michael.frier

Oh the hard toil’s of PR – why my life is more stressful than a Docs

Today I read that the lovely people who put together CareerCast.com’s 2011 report have finally highlighted the plight of the PR. In fact, they have found that PR is the second most stressful job (after pilot); whilst working in the healthcare industry provides you with the least amount of work pressure. PR more stressful than being a doctor? Can’t see why that wouldn’t be true…

I mean we have all had those days when you receive an email at least once every 5 minutes asking you to ‘action’ something – whether it be finding an image for a journalist, drafting an award entry that’s deadline is only in a month, or pulling together a press release that’s already been scheduled to go out in just two weeks’ time. These tasks are often only broken up by the extraordinarily pressurising act of pitching for new business…where you are so desperate to come up with a creative idea that you hold brainstorm after brainstorm (which is essentially just people screaming random and hilarious ideas at you for an hour). Then these heart-pulsating days are finished off with the hyper stressful client and journalist after-work drinks…where God forbid you have to actually act like a normal human-being for the course of an evening. It is days like these that I think…why didn’t I just become a doctor, what’s at stake then? People’s lives…pfff…how’s that ever gonna be stressful.

Now as much as I may have just mocked the stress involved in PR, the fact is there are some pretty tight deadlines and quite heavy workloads. And considering the fact that most people that work in PR (myself included) haven’t actually done a day of hard-labour in their life – I can see why they would answer a survey and say their job is very stressful. However, I do have to question those healthcare professionals who said they don’t have pressure at work…it is one of the few industries where decisions can actually be life and death. I would think that would bring with it a certain amount of pressure. Pilots can clearly see that having people’s lives in their hands comes with a fair bit of pressure…why can’t the doctors and nurses of this world take the responsibility as seriously.

To be honest, I think I have come up with the reason the reports results has come out like this. We all know how terrible the Healthcare sector is at basic administration work, there is every possibility that they just filled out the survey incorrectly. Also, Dieticians came in as second least stressful job…I have to ask, did anyone take into account the stress the weighing scales in their offices under-go every day?

I also, enjoyed the fact that the reason given by Tony lee, publisher of the report, for PR being such a stressful job was: “As traditional forms of communication transition to digital, those who want to remain employed need to embrace new technologies or find a new career.” I have to admit; learning how to use Twitter has sent my heart racing with angst on almost a daily basis. Lee followed that amazing justification with a superb clarification on what a non-stressful job, unlike PR, entails – “Professions that involve low stress usually have very little danger and minimal physical demands.” – I must say that when I was younger I never fancied myself as a daredevil, but now I have seen first-hand the high amount of danger involved in my day-to-day routine as a PR; it is clear I was born to be one. And, well as for minimal physical demands; clearly all the miners up North have it easy compared to us PR’s – mining for coal…pff…try inserting a whole wad of paper into the photocopier at work – that’s physical exertion.

Finally, I’d just like to say that advertising account executive’s came sixth – four places below PR – I knew we were more important!

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April 11th, 2011 by Speed Budapest (Matt)

When was the last time you googled yourself?

There was an interesting article in the FT at the weekend about how to manage your online presence effectively and why it’s now an important part of building a successful career. Whilst some parts of managing your online brand seem like common sense – don’t swear like a sailor or share inappropriate photos with the whole world – some of it isn’t quite so obvious, making the article an essential read for students and PR professional alike.

For university students, managing your online presence offers invaluable experience, showing that you fully understand the importance of reputation management and can navigate online networks with ease. It also presents you with a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate your skills, share your thoughts, and build links with influential people in the industry.

Managing your online presence isn’t just about appealing to new employers though; it can also be a key part of winning new business. If you wanted to hire a PR agency, would you not be tempted to google the names of the consultants that you would potentially be working with? And if you were impressed with a particular company’s communications, would you not want to try and find out who was behind it? Of course you would!

It’ll be very interesting to see how this trend evolves. Already PR agencies are offering firms help with developing social media guidelines for spokespeople and other staff. But as more businesses start caring about how staff carry themselves online, perhaps we’ll see more PR agencies and SEO firms working with time-poor individuals to ‘clean up’ any social media mistakes that could affect their employability or put off prospective customers.

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