July 26th, 2010 by Wadds

Review: Dan Ilett’s Get Quoted media training audio book

I had the pleasure of sharing a car journey with Dan Ilet this morning. At least I was joined by his dulcet tones on my iPod in the form of his new audio book called Get Quoted.

Get Quoted is available via iTunes priced £7.99 and is a 45-minute media training guide to mastering press interviews.

Ilet has a great pedigree. He’s the founder of Greenbang.com an online environmental technology and CSR publication. I should disclose at this point that I occasionally write a column for Greenbang called the Grumpy Environmentalist.

During his career as a journalist Ilett has written for The Economist, The Financial Times and numerous technology publications and is regularly called on by PR firms and their clients to media train executives.

In Get Quoted Ilet covers the basics of the media in 2010, preparing for interviews and how to give a good interview, all in an incredibly upbeat, accessible format.

I had three key takeaways:

always test your story – use the mantra of the news editor, “so what”, “so what”, “so what”
prepare for interviews – develop key messages and learn the basics of managing an interview
always get back a journalist before deadline – very basic stuff but very few people do

Ilet is critical of the role of the PR industry as the gatekeeper to stories. But in Get Quoted he’s produced an excellent product to help the industry do it job properly.

It’s a must have for anyone that works in PR or speaks regularly to the press. You can quote me on that.

Posted in Media, PR
Tags: dan ilett, media training, PR
3 Comments »

July 2nd, 2010 by Wadds

CIPR Summer Social debate finds PR and search marketing remain separate worlds

The PR industry has failed to embrace search marketing. That was the conclusion of a group of PR, social media, and search marketing professionals that met yesterday as part of the CIPR’s Social Media Summer series to debate the issue.

There are well-publicised exceptions highlighted by the recent NMA search league tables but the majority of the PR industry has seemingly yet to wake-up to even the basics of search marketing.

Analysis by Escherman’s Andrew Smith shows that the majority of the PR Week Top 150 agencies are failing to make even basic efforts to optimise their own web sites.

Disparate functions
But perhaps that’s not important. It is unlikely that PR and search marketing will be integrated until clients break down silos and recognise the opportunity for an integrated approach. And that’s going to take at least a generation of marketing professional according to We Are Social’s managing director Robin Grant.

“The opportunity for earlier wins lies in targeting entrepreneurs, small-to-medium sized businesses and marketing directors that outsource their marketing programmes,” said Grant.

Friend and foe: PR vs search
Site Visibility’s creative director Kelvin Newman spotlighted the similarities between PR and natural search. Content creation, syndication and engagement are all PR techniques he said.

Newman’s view is that the integrated use of PR to drive brand and search to drive sales is a potent combination.

But never the two shall meet according to Nixon McInnes’ managing director Will McInnes. PR and search are completely different disciplines with their own unique cultures.

“We’ve been talking about integrated PR and search marketing for at least four years. If it was going to happen it would surely have happened by now,” said McInnes.

Opportunity?
But developments such as the semantic web and social search could provide the PR industry with fresh impetus to regain ground according Klea’s director David Phillips.

Phillips is a long time PR industry commentator and said that he believed that the next generation of search engines are likely to make it increasingly difficult for search marketing agencies to manipulate search results.

Uniting around a crisis
Crisis management is the one area where search marketing and PR are integrated and the role of the normally discrete functions is well understood according to Lanson’s head of digital Simon Sanders. PR typically takes the lead advisory function but will pull in search professionals to clean up the aftermath of a crisis in search results he said.

One person that has been closely observing how PR and search marketing shakes out is Daryl Willcox, chairman and founder of DW Publishing, the media group whose products include ResponseSource and SourceWire.

In 2007 he wrote a white paper that warned that the PR profession risked being sidelined by search marketing. Today his biggest customer is a search agency.

“A fifth of the 850 press releases that are posted on SourceWire a month are from search agencies. Less than half of the releases from PR agencies include links [indicating a low awareness of SEO],” said Willcox.

Many of the individuals present had a story to share about media confusion that had resulted from search marketing agencies using what have traditionally regarded as PR channels to distribute content.

Search agencies buy PR skills
PR agencies may have been slow to embrace search but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that search marketing agencies are hiring PR professionals in a bid to understand the editorial world.

But it’s not just the talent that they are seeking. We Are Social’s Grant said that a higher premium was placed on search marketing agencies. “Valuations are at least three times the multiple of PR agencies,” he said.

Grant predicted that search marketing agencies may start to seek out PR firms as acquisition targets in a bid to create scale. It’s unlikely to happen the other way round.

The CIPR’s Social Media Summer Series will continue to explore different aspects of digital PR and social media each Thursday evening in London throughout the summer. Please check the wiki for upcoming topics.

Posted in PR, Social media
Tags: #CIPRSM, CIPR, PR, search marketing, SEO
24 Comments »

June 29th, 2010 by Wadds

PR leaders gloomy on industry outlook

Last week’s emergency budget spells doom and gloom for agencies wedded to the public sector. At least that’s the headline from a PRCA survey of 52 PR industry leaders published this morning.

Almost two-thirds of PRCA PR Leaders’ Panel welcomed the budget, despite only just over one in ten thinking it would have a positive impact on their business in the short-term.

All respondents predict the public sector will lose communicators over the next year, with over 90 per cent predicting that the public sector will also use agencies less. In contrast, PR Leaders expect private sector use of agencies to increase over the next twelve months.

The majority of respondents (86 per cent) foresee no cuts in staff numbers as a result of the budget. But longer term, more than half of respondents, said that they expected to see a reduction in the number of PR and communication professionals over the next three years.

The results are supported by news yesterday from communications group Creston. It reported a revenue fall of 4 per cent up until March 2010.

Posted in PR
Tags: Creston, PR, PRCA
5 Comments »

June 18th, 2010 by Wadds

PR view of changing media

Here’s a presentation that I gave last night to the PRCA’s Frontline group in the West Midlands. It describes the changing media landscape, the rise of digital, the changing role of the PR professional and the importance of building your own personal network.

Posted in Media, PR
Tags: Frontline, PR, PRCA, West Midlands
6 Comments »

June 17th, 2010 by Wadds

PRCA breakfast: SEO for PR

The PRCA hosted a breakfast at Ketchum Pleon this morning where myself and Fernando Rizo (@fernandorizo) ran attendees through the basics of organic and pay per click (PPC) search.

My presentation covered organic SEO as part of the PR process. Fernando spoke about using paid search to kick start PR campaigns and conversations. Its a neat tactic that he calls contextual marketing “so as not to threaten the ad guys.”

Here’s my slide deck.

Posted in Business, PR
Tags: PR, PRCA, SEO
6 Comments »

May 4th, 2010 by Wadds

Satirical PR guide to reputation management

Posted in PR
Tags: PR, reputation management
1 Comment »

April 8th, 2010 by Wadds

Durrant’s Jeremy Thompson on the Gorkana deal

Durrants has acquired Gorkana less than five-months after its acquisition of Metrica.

Durrants is a business that under the leadership of managing director Jeremy Thompson has set its sights firmly on modernising the workflow of PR agencies and in-house teams. I caught up with Thompson this morning to ask him about the deal.

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the deal is worth £20m. How did you arrive at a valuation and what’s the structure of the deal?
We are not sure where The Telegraph got its numbers from but we are not disclosing the consideration. What we will say is that the combined group of Durrants, Metrica and Gorkana will have revenues in excess of £40m and over 5,000 customers. The founders, Alex Northcott and Michael Webster, are staying with the business to help us build the ultimate support service for PR professionals.

What’s your relationship with Exponent?
Exponent Private Equity is our primary investor. They backed a Management Buy out of Durrants in 2006, and have supported us through the latest round of acquisitions including Metrica and Gorkana. They are very supportive of our strategy to grow and transform the business and have helped us make it happen.

What’s the strategy for Durrants with Gorkana and Metrica on board?
Our strategy is to build a unique proposition which combines the 3 market leaders in three key steps of the PR workflow – planning, monitoring and evaluation. We have the pieces, now we plan to put them together and transform the sector. Watch this space.

Have you any more acquisitions planned?
We have now got the pieces we have long identified as being the leaders in this sector. We now need to focus on putting them together to build the killer application. That is going to occupy us for the foreseeable future. So no more planned for now.

How soon can we get an enterprise deal for Durrants, Gorkana and Metrica products and services?
We’re not going to rush to integrate. The key is stability, and to build something really special for the long term. We are very happy to do enterprise deals from day one though, and have already done a number for Durrants and Metrica combined services. So give us a call.

PR spam is a massive issue for the industry at the moment. What are Gorkana’s plans to tackle this?
Getting PRs to engage with journalists in an intelligent way is at the heart of everything Gorkana does. Gorkana works with the PR industry to target journalists with stories and information they want via regular breakfast briefings, networking events and Gorkana features, such as regional mapping and headline coverage, and to help PRs build more targeted media lists. From a technical point of view Gorkana stops duplicate emails being sent to the same journalists and regularly monitors over-sized media lists. I know it’s an issue that’s close to the heart of Gorkana’s CEO Alex Northcott and he’s keen to engage with the industry and hear about other ways to tackle spam head on.

Is there anything else you want to share with the PR industry?
There is plenty we want to share over the coming months. We really believe that what we’re doing is going to transform our industry. We’ll keep you posted on the journey. This idea emerged from market research, so it is entirely customer driven. We’ll keep engaging with our customers along the way to make sure we’re getting it right. We want to share, and to hear back.

Posted in Business, Media, PR
Tags: Durrants, Gorkana, Jeremy Thompson, Metrica, PR
5 Comments »

March 9th, 2010 by Wadds

Students: how to kickstart your PR career

Communication students leaving university have never had so much opportunity as the current workplace.

This is generation that has grown up with the technology and the tools that so many businesses have yet to embrace. They already have many of the skills that agencies and communication teams are striving to build.

But there is more that the current generation of PR graduates could do to kickstart their PR careers. Developing and demonstrating your digital communication skills will improve your employment prospects and may even enable you to demand a higher starting salary than your less digital savvy counterparts.

This was my message to students on the International PR MA at the University of Cardiff. I ended my session yesterday with a three ideas for ways in which students could kickstart their careers.

Build personal online networks
Create a profile on LinkedIn and include details of your course and any work placements. Start to build a network with people on your course and contacts you make through work placements. Likewise Twitter. Build connections with future employers.

Generate content and conversations
Sunderland journalist student Josh Halliday’s SR2 hyperlocal blog is an extreme example of this strategy but no future employer is going to be left in any doubt of his skills. Demonstrate your expertise by contributing comment and content to hyper local blogs, forums and blogs.

Blog
There is ultimately no better way of demonstrating your ability to build networks and generate content than a blog. Ben Cotton’s is a great example. He started a blog in his final year at Leeds Metropolitan University and recently landed an award from the European Public Relations Education and Research Association – and a job in the digital team at Edelman.

Kickstarting a career in PR

View more presentations from Stephen Waddington.

Posted in PR, Social media
Tags: blog, Cardiff University, Employment, LinkedIn, PR, Public relations, twitter
6 Comments »

March 9th, 2010 by Wadds

University of Cardiff digital communication masterclass: media trends and PR skills

PR is the management of reputation. That used to exclusively mean using media relations to build trust between an organisation and its audiences.

But traditional media is in turmoil: ad revenue is at an all time low thanks to the recession and the internet has reduced the cost of publication and distribution to almost zero.

The rise of social networks has led consumers to fundamentally change their media consumption habits. Consumers are becoming contributors.

The impact on the PR profession has been dramatic. Command and control media relations no longer works and increasing brands are building direct relationships with their audiences using compelling content and story telling.

These changes formed the core of a guest lecture I gave on digital communication to the International PR MA course at the University of Cardiff yesterday.

The slidedeck cites five trends in the media and the rise of social media – and five areas where I believe PR professionals need to skill-up as a result.

University of Cardiff digital communication masterclass: media trends and PR skills

View more presentations from Stephen Waddington.

Posted in Media, PR, Social media
Tags: Cardiff University, Media, media relations, PR, PR skills, Public relations, skills, Social media, Social network
4 Comments »

February 20th, 2010 by Wadds

Show me the money: PR salaries

Never one to shy away from straight talking my oppo Steve Earl spotlighted yesterday how you can improve your chances of a salary rise if you work for a PR agency.

“There are […] three levers in a PR agency: staff costs, overheads and profit. That is it. These aren’t complex businesses,” says Earl.

The money must be there – growing businesses have more room to flex their staffing costs; demonstrate your ability to win and grow business
Benchmark salary levels – seek out your agency’s salary scales versus roles and skills – and build your skills. If this data doesn’t exist within your business you’ll get it from any industry recruiter
If you’re a specialist your earning potential will erode over time as your specialism becomes a mainstream skill – enjoy the wave but in the short-to-medium terms agencies must skill-up across the board

Check out Steve’s post in full. Its well worth a read and could even make you some money.

Posted in Business, PR
Tags: benchmark, PR, pr agency, PR business model, PR salaries, PR skills, salary
2 Comments »

January 23rd, 2010 by Wadds

Book reviews: Advice for Multimedia Journalists and Newsgathering for Hyperlocal Websites

I’ve discovered two e-books this week that should be a must read for any PR that is keen to understand how the remit of a journalist is changing and to gain an insight into the future of regional media.

Both books are written by London-based journalist Adam Westbrook, a City University graduate that has worked in Ghana, Iraq and the UK.

In Advice for Multimedia Journalists (free PDF download) an ebook created from a series of original blog posts, Westbrook spells out the opportunity for journalists created by the upheaval in publishing and distribution.

In the digital age journalists need to be brands in their own right. There is little room for humility. Westbrook says that journalists must overcome the discomfort of blowing their own trumpet quoting SEO specialist Brian Clark, “if people think you’re important, so will Google.”

Diversification is the key combining skills such as copyrighting, photography, video production and web design with journalism to create a portfolio career. Westbrook provides insights into each area as a means of generating an income.

In Newsgathering for Hyperlocal Websites (£7.99 PDF download) Westbrook tackles the rising genre of hyperlocal blogs and describes how to set up a hyperlocal blog, create a newsroom and describes the process of newsgathering and reporting.

The basic skills of a journalist have changed little despite the upheaval in the media. Much of the craft such as maintaining a news diary, digging out news from local sources and on-diary versus-off diary that Westbrook shares would have traditionally been taught on a NUJ training course.

Westbrook spells out the technical skills needed to set up a hyperlocal site, signposting sources of further information and sharing tips for automating much of the news gathering process. His sections on web mining for stories and Freedom of Information requests would provide a near constant news stream for any hyperlocal site.

Westbrook makes clear his attitude to PRs that fail to understand the remit of hyperlocal media and pitch inappropriate stories. But then regional media has long been poorly served by the largely London-based PR industry. PRs need to work out how they can best embrace the emerging segment that is hyperlocal media.

Westbrook is clearly a talented journalist with an entrepreneurial flair that has a bright future whatever the future of journalism.

Posted in Media, PR
Tags: Adam Westbrook, hyperlocal, Media, PR
8 Comments »

January 15th, 2010 by Wadds

The Economist positive on PR industry future

There’s an article in this week’s The Economist (disclosure: Speed client) written out of New York that paints a rosy future for the PR industry.

Growth is being driven by clients prioritising communication, particularly during the recession, and budgets being diverted from other marketing activities.

Edelman chief Richard Edelman is quoted as says that PR is the “organising principle” behind many business decisions.

Clients, The Economist says, are putting their budgets behind larger, more established firms. Media fragmentation and social media are also cited as a shot-in-the-arm for the industry.

The article should be a must read for anyone in business this morning.

Posted in Business, PR
Tags: PR, The Economist
12 Comments »

December 8th, 2009 by Wadds

David Phillips: Will newspapers credit online communities?

David Phillips is an author, lecturer and agency PR man. If you haven’t read the book he co-wrote with Sunderland University’s Philip Young called Online Public Relations then shame on you.

Phillips has brought a fresh perspective to the NLA debate by challenging the ownership of original content. It’s a debate that Phillips has supported with a real time case study.

“I went to this page in The Times, analysed it to get the semantic concepts. Looked for those concepts in Bing.com and found that loads of other people and publication wrote this story in similar terms long before The Times.”

“When The Times vanishes behind its firewall will this mean that it will pay all the other sites for the news it plagiarises from them as well as suing all the sites that use the same story after they publish offline or behind the firewall?”

“Who, then is going to set up the counter organisation to the NLA to get their money back from newspapers who borrow/plagiarise content from the online community?” asks Phillips.

Its Flat Earth News revisited. Phillips works from the premise that very little is original. And so we very quickly get into a debate about how original content is created and how you credit the originator and the organisations that circulate a story.

Posted in Business, Media, PR
Tags: David Phillips, Newspaper Licensing Agency, NLA, Philip Young, PR, Sunderland University
2 Comments »