PR Events and Social Media

We all love events and trips. They are great for putting clients in front of the media and spreading key messages. However, it’s sometimes easy to forget that these events and trips also provide great content for social media. People want real world insights into brands and we have an easy way to bring this to them.

Traditional media are frequently invited on trips or to events and nowadays it’s also important to involve – carefully selected – bloggers, too. Bloggers can be just as important as our more traditional friends. The added bonus for us is that bloggers are also often very active on social media themselves and  are well respected by their peers through their own networks. They are fantastic communicators who, if you’re doing your job right, will reach out to likeminded people. Fans of brands enjoy a sneak peek behind the scenes at events if they are fun, different or “cool”. If you can publicise beforehand, you can ask your social media followers what they would like to see and tweet attending journalists and bloggers from client’s twitter handle or with an appropriate hashtag.  When you’re there you can tweet and post about activities throughout the experience and it’s worth including as many images as you can. Humour also goes a long way so funny (but appropriate) pictures can really engage with your audience. Retweet messages to followers if they are relevant or interesting, too – it’s great for engaging with your audience and showing your appreciation. After the trip, you can add an album of your trip to Facebook for everyone to enjoy – being selective and not forgetting to save some gems for those who went with you.

The rise and rise of social media means that PR events can add extra value to client communications – allowing real people to get closer to brands whilst providing great media opportunities.

Careful What You Tweet

Social media is never silent and it seems that every week there’s a new lesson to learn. If you haven’t seen the story about Grace Dent, you missed a good lesson last week. In a nutshell, a PR Graduate made a serious gaffe by tweeting how ugly he thought she was following her appearance on Have I Got News for You – he compared her to an ex girlfriend he described as an “ugly abhorrent horse”. It may seem timely for many, as the ensuing Twitter storm and extensive media coverage happened just prior to the announcement by the Independent (who have also raised their cover price to £1.20) that she was joining them and the Evening Standard as a TV critic. One can’t help but feel sorry for the poor chap who has been branded a ‘Troll’ (though it was one tweet and he immediately apologised) and received quite fierce retorts from the journalist – part of the conversation is below:

GD: Hi there Mufadel. How much do you like your job at [company name removed]?

GD: I’m wondering, as a public relations person for a firm I work with, what your thinking was in sending me this message?

JM: Unreservedly withdraw my vulgar and puerile comment regarding @gracedent, especially in light of the bbc doc on internet trolls last week.

GD: you’ll bear the brunt of your idiocy at 10am tomorrow morning when you’re unemployed. Good luck.

Having a hunt on Twitter, it appears that the conversation has been removed and it was a storm in a teacup. Grace also received her fair share of criticism for her reaction but, thankfully, the entire situation appears to have been resolved and the PR in question is still employed.

So what delightful lessons can we draw from this? Firstly, do be careful what you tweet and who you tweet at – as you can see, there’s potential for it to go horribly wrong. There has been so much in the media about the misery caused by social media so….

• Think twice about what you Tweet or post on Facebook – it’s great to have a personality but ask yourself – is it really how I want to be reflected?

• Remember that Twitter is public – others can see what you write and it can affect current and potential employer’s decisions.

• If you @ someone’s Twitter handle they will see it – worth bearing in mind when you want to engage with them.

• Don’t insult people – insults are now generally considered as trolling (it doesn’t matter if they’re strangers) – friendly banter is great if you know them well. If you’re a PR trying to befriend journalist, it’s difficult enough to build relationships without shooting yourself in the foot.

• Your Tweets can reflect badly on your current employers and no one wants the CEO of the company stepping in to manage the situation, as happened in this case.

Things can go viral – you have to be pretty lucky/unlucky (depending on what you want) but why tempt fate with something that’s not thought through?

Perhaps Thumper from Disney’s Bambi put it best… If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all

iPad – a Social Media Dream?

Love it or loath it, news of the new iPad on social media, in the news, and all over the internet has been pretty unavoidable. Apple invitations were sent out as Google chairman Eric Schmidt was taking centre stage for his Mobile World Congress announcement, causing a bit of a sensation. The invites attracted so much speculation and furore it’s possible those in the UK that don’t go on social media sites or the internet, don’t read newspapers, live in a cave and don’t have friends might not have known about it.

Admittedly, I got caught up in all the hype, religiously following all of the consumer tech sites that I could think of for some extra little snippet. Some interesting pieces came out including one from the Guardian which crowd sourced predictions and Stuff, which had a nice rundown of the rumours from haptic technology to 4G. With no one from Apple letting anything slip and everyone guessing, it certainly built some buzz, especially on Twitter.  At a Gorkana breakfast briefing last year one well-known journalist mentioned that Apple’s PR model was not an example to be followed – they are very secretive, they give information when they want, rarely provide additional information, rarely give access to key spokespeople and do everything on their terms. To copy them is a very good way to annoy lots of journalists but, Apple carry it off and leave us gagging for more.

I can admit to staying at work a bit late to ensure an uninterrupted internet connection if the rumours of a super-duper-whizz-bang-never-seen-before “must have” were true. Sadly, not all the predictions were right and I’m not sure it could have lived up to the hype unless it turned invisible, looked totally different and travelled through time. There were some interesting reviews in the news from the likes of Murad Ahmed from the Times and Hayden Smith from the Metro, and hands on videos from CNET and T3. The general consensus seems to be that it was a bit of a letdown after all the fizz and that Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. The iPad is a little bigger and a weeny bit heavier than iPad 2, but it doesn’t look very different and the name is a bit boring. Yes, there are some pretty cool features, but I’m not sure I’ll rush out to buy o ne just yet and Twitter seems to be a lot quieter today.

The PR Internship Debate

Here at onechocolate we believe that interns are a valuable commodity and they should be paid and treated fairly. Most of us have done our fair share of internships and I have to say that mine were an invaluable insight into the industry and helped me realise that PR was the career for me. I was always treated fairly (though not always paid) and since joining this agency I’ve loved our interns –they tell me this is reciprocated. They help us and we try our best to impart our pearls of wisdom whilst letting them experience what it’s like to be in a busy and bustling agency. PR is not always the glamorous ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ world portrayed in some TV sitcoms, and there is a lot of hard work which goes into the smooth running and maintaining momentum of campaigns and brand building. Granted, a lot of an intern’s work will be administrative but, if they show aptitude they are very often allowed more responsibility and help with anything from placing competitions and writing copy to product placement and talking to media. Obviously, interns do have to prove that their ability before being unleashed onto the big wide world of media first.

Sadly, there isn’t always the opportunity to offer interns a permanent job once they’ve finished, but it does help wannabe PR peeps get their foot on the job ladder by giving them experience and a taste of what it’s like. It’s not just that, they also build contacts (I still have some great ones from my time as an intern) and, more often than not, receive lots of help, advice and support for their next move. If you’re an intern reading this, don’t be despondent if you don’t get a permanent job after your first couple of internships, trying out a few different agencies will let you experience different types of PR, whether it’s consumer facing or B2B, and also shows your determination to potential employers (everyone knows now’s a tough time to get a job, anyway).

Whilst there are many fantastic internship programmes out there, what is disturbing is that some companies take advantage of interns, not only financially, but also by treating them poorly. Companies that do not pay their interns, and give them a poor learning experience, really ought to hang their heads in shame. It devalues the valuable contribution that interns can make and is also, potentially, illegal. It’s unfair to expect someone to work for months for free and it also means potential PR stars of the future are being priced out of the market or put off by the few companies that, quite frankly, aren’t behaving as they should. This, to us, is something that should never happen. In fact, we’ve signed the PRCA intern charter which means that we commit to paying our interns at least minimum wage – as we have always done – and we fully support the PR Week campaign launched in October of last year. There are quite a few agencies who have signed the charter and we hope very much that all companies across all industries come together to eradicate this practice.

Technology, Life and our addiction to smartphones

Last Saturday evening I had the misfortune (or luck) to place my low-battery mobile phone in a “safe place” at home (I think). Mid-way through the week and I still hadn’t managed to locate it but as a persistent and positive PR I refused to give in and report it lost.

Coincidentally, this also happened to be the week that RIM went into meltdown, leaving millions of Blackberry users without access to the internet so at least I wasn’t suffering alone. An Ofcom survey released this summer highlighted that a quarter of adults and nearly half of teenagers admitted to being highly addicted to their smartphones. We spend hours with them and rarely have them out of arm’s reach (even if we are in the bathroom). A Sheila’s Wheel’s survey found that partners love their phones more than their partners and on the average night out 48 minutes are spent on these techy toys. I, for one, admit to spending an unnecessary amount of time with my phone, whether it’s keeping up with the latest news, looking at Twitter, playing games and emailing not to mention normal calls, texts etc. Pre loss I was checking my phone for news in the bath, slept next to it, checked it in bed once the alarm went off in the morning, in the bus on the way to work, on the way home, at lunch with colleagues and the list goes on. This is not a unique situation and though colleagues say that checking my emails in the bath is a little on the extreme side, most admit to being unable to cope without their mobiles.

So what is it like not having a smartphone? I have to say, after the initial feeling of missing a limb wears off, it’s actually not that bad. I had to use landlines, traditional maps, be on time and started to read again. My tech hits were limited to laptops and my work PC, but I noticed a sense of freedom, better concentration and that my eyes weren’t as strained. I also talked to people without worrying about what my trusty little electronic pal was up to. I went to an event in Shoreditch called Slow Tech last month, which examined ways to detach from tech for a while. Whilst recognising that technology plays an important part in our lives, the event also looked at our inability to not check phones every few minutes. Interesting solutions included the Tamagochi style living plant which is looked after when your phone or iPad is plugged in and not touched, the innovative pulley system which lifts your phone out of reach until it’s fully charged and a tech blocking gizmo which blocks signals and apps – very handy when you’re having a dinner party. A friend and I had dinner the other night and I found myself increasingly irritated with his need to reply to texts and check his phone. Slow Tech speakers argued that no one’s going to die when you don’t look at your phone for a couple of hours – something that I agree wholeheartedly with. I may have caved in and finally ordered a replacement phone, but I certainly think it helped me realise our obsession with being constantly connected is unnecessary. I wonder how many Blackberry users feel the same?