As a PR professional, being able to access news online from a variety of sources is vital to help stay on top of breaking news and track trends and issues on behalf of my clients. Whilst Berkeley is likely to subscribe to the new sites when they start charging for content from June, I am not sure how many other businesses and individuals will do the same.
Whilst the FT and The Wall Street Journal are the only other national news sites to charge for content, it doesn’t look like any others plan to follow suit just yet. It will be interesting to see how subscription levels and user numbers stack up on The Times and The Sunday Times sites when the new model is launched. If reader numbers fall as a result, surely this will have a detrimental effect on the popularity of the newspaper, rather than reinforcing the quality of its journalism?
Every quarter, Berkeley PR and its sister agency Ascent PR attend a QRM (Quarterly Review Meeting). Taking place over the course of an afternoon, the QRM gives us the chance to meet up with our colleagues from the other offices, learn new skills and enjoy good food at a trendy restaurant. This quarter’s was no exception, and for the afternoon we attended a Laughter Yoga session.
‘What is Laughter Yoga?’ I hear you cry. Well, according to the official website, it is:
“a combination of Laughter Exercises with Yogic Breathing (pranayama), so that you increase the amount of oxygen in your body whilst being playful resulting in you feeling more healthy, energised and alive.”
The thinking behind Laughter Yoga is that by learning to laugh at will, you can increase your levels of happiness and your outlook on life. The instructor taught us a series of exercises and techniques that helped us to relax (such as stretching and breathing tips) and also served as great ways to boost our confidence by taking us out of our comfort zones (like the speaking in a made up language exercise). The session was rounded off with a very relaxing meditation session, which was so relaxing that I nearly fell asleep!
After all that laughing, we went home to put our finest clothes on ready for dinner at the Art of Siam restaurant in the heart of Reading. The restaurant served us some of the nicest Thai food I’ve ever tried, including a fantastic Thai Green Curry (Gaeng Kiew Wan) and stir fried beef in oyster sauce (Neua Namman Hoi). My mouth is watering thinking about that food!
The QRMs are a great way to meet other members of the team that you may not necessarily see on a day-to-day basis, and also let you meet new team members. They are also a great way to do things that you wouldn’t necessarily think of doing. In the past we’ve had circus skills training, pottery painting and wine-tasting sessions! Roll on the next QRM!
The PR world is generally female dominated for some reason so my almost stalker level knowledge of football is wasted on my colleagues. That said, @Liamsherry has recently joined our ranks and finally I have someone to discuss my fantasy football team with and enjoy some banter about the title run in. It has been well documented that the gifted on the football pitch, haven’t necessarily been blessed in the brains department and recently there have been a few classic examples of footballers getting their hands burnt using social networks.
Some teams such as United have even put a blanket ban on its players using tools such as Twitter for which they have been derided as short sighted. With so many clubs/brands (ggrrr) scared of using these tools I was interested to see that the BBC is now promoting a feature on its site based around one of its ex-pros, and pundits, Steve Clarridge. On the site Steve says:
“if you have a question for me, you can submit it through Twitter at http://twitter.com/AskClaridge or use the form on the top right of the page.
I like this use of Twitter as an interactive tool. Most news sites or companies use Twitter as a way to push content or monitor what customers are saying about them. I love the fact that the BBC is using it to start and encourage conversations and believe that this is a great example of a company getting Twitter right.
Now I wonder if Steve thinks Aldershot will make the play offs this year…..
Anyone who reads this blog will know that I am a massive fan of the benefits available from using Twitter but it does also have the potential to be a massive time waster which was highlighted by David Letterman on the Late Show recently (via the PR Junkie blog). If any of the following sound familiar then maybe it is time to step away from the 140 characters.
David Letterman: Top ten signs you are spending too much time on Twitter.
10. You miss son’s soccer game waiting for Lady GaGa to post what she had for lunch.
9. You answer the phone “Twello”.
8. Youv’e spent millions developing iPhone waterproofing technology so you can tweet in the shower.
7. You haven’t touched your CB radio in months.
6. You ask yourself, what would Jesus tweet?
5. You sleep tweet.
4. No number four – the writer is on Twitter.
3. You stopped paying attention to this last after the first 140 characters.
2. Even Ashton Kutcher thinks you tweet too much.
1. Walked in on the landscaper retweeting your wife.
All very silly but good fun. You can watch the clip here.
I’ve been reading an interesting article on Wired looking at the last ten years of the internet. In this short space of time we had the internet boom, where millions of dollars was poured into brand new websites and online ventures. The boom was followed by a bust as companies hit the limitations of current technology and weren’t able to deliver what they promised, resulting in many failed companies.
Despite the bust, these formative years have left their mark on the internet. One effect of this, especially on the media, has been the creation of a whole new set of terms. Everyone uses these on a day to day basis with out even thinking about it, and I suppose we all forget where they come from, as they are so ingrained in our internal dictionaries, especially those of us working in B2B PR. According to the article, we have the internet to thank for such terms as:
B2B
Page impressions
Teleconferencing
ecommerce (and anything else with ‘e’ in front of it)
Hits
Stickiness (on a webpage)
Webcast
Webinar
Have I missed any out? While many people may complain about the creation of new words (tweet, twestival, wiki, googled), its not something that can be stopped, especially as an internet phenomenon becomes more and more popular. What I’m most interested in is what terms will still be in popular use in another ten years from now. Although my money is definitely on google (as a verb), I’m not so sure about the others. Any suggestions?
Last summer, a black Volkswagen Beetle with a giant tripod on its roof drove past me while I was taking advantage of the weather and eating my lunch outside. “Aha” I thought to myself, “that’s the Google StreetView camera”.
Since then, I have been awaiting my appearance on Google StreetView. Well, it looks like that my time has come. I saw on CNet that Google was ready to publish the rest of the images from its StreetView cars, and being the impatient person that I am, I rushed onto the internet. Lo-and-behold, I am there, eating my lunch:
More importantly, you can see the base of operations for Berkeley PR, just down the road from me having my lunch. Unfortunately, you can’t see any of us through the windows, but you can see our HQ, Sheraton House, in all its glory:
As you can see from the links, one of the best things about working in the countryside is that everything looks fantastic in the summer – lots of green trees and sunshine!
Source: mailonline - shameless excuse to get Cheryl Cole on the blog
Regular readers of this blog will have a noticed a common theme to my entries – celebrities, reality TV and soap operas. My name is Hannah Humphreys and I am addicted to celebrity culture.
1. Simon Cowell 2. David Beckham 3. Cheryl Cole 4. Prince William 5. Ant and Dec 6. Robert Patterson 7. Sir Paul McCartney 8. Kate Moss 9. Rio Ferdinand 10. Lord Alan Sugar
What caught my attention about the list was in the middle of this celeb fest were business men and tech geeks. Following Sir Alan at number 10 was Sir Richard Branson at 13 and Stephen Fry at 33. Just goes to show that celebrity status isn’t just confined to sport stars, actors, musicians, models and TV personalities and I’m sure the work that has gone into raising the profile of these ‘now’ celebs hasn’t hurt their businesses either.
If you have a charasmatic spokesperson then profiling can add personality to a business and help build thought leadership and noise around your brand. Maybe it is time to start being a celebrity and launching your own profiling campaign.
Reading a recent blog on E- Consultancy.com it was interesting to find that after all the gloomy press coverage Toyota has received recently, its attempts to improve its brand reputation using real-time web channels has taken some criticism.
Toyota has set up a TweetMeme channel called Toyota Conversations to monitor and display news stories tweeted about the brand. However, there have been accusations suggesting that Toyota is filtering negative tweets to try and speed up the process of getting its reputation back on track. Twitter applications such as Tweetfeel reflect that actual news tweets are far more negative than Toyota are making out.
It’s definitely a positive move that Toyota is using social media networks to monitor the buzz of what people are saying about its brand. Online engagement means that Toyota can join the conversation to analyse the reputation of its brand and form strategies from what is said, which is especially important in crisis situations.
The TweetMeme is a good way to get all positive conversations on Toyota presented in one place. However, the timing of when Toyota has decided to gather tweets is a little odd as most of its news is still negative. Toyota should be proactively using as many channels as possible to spread the word of its positive work, such as paying for loaned vehicles, rental fees and taxi expenses for customers who are affected. This can improve the positive trend of mentions, meaning there is little need to filter comments written about the brand.
So it was revealed today that for the first time in Waitrose history it will be using celebrities to promote the supermarket chain. And who are these iconic celebrities, I hear you cry. Well it is none other than Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal.
Now, if I worked in the PR team for Waitrose I would be slightly nervous. It was only last year that Heston was all over the national and broadcast press for allegedly poisoning over 500 diners at The Fat Duck. Then there is Mrs Smith who, at Christmas 2008, recommended that people store their turkey in the garden shed or the boot of their car – not the greatest suggestion if you don’t fancy getting food poisoning.
Perhaps I am over zealous because of my work on the Check Safety First account. But if I did the PR for Waitrose, these would have been massive concerns. Poor food hygiene and food promotion shouldn’t go hand-in-hand.
I understand that a celebrity endorsement can be a great way to get a brand noticed by the media and its customers, but it is also important to think carefully before deciding which celebrity you want to endorse your company.
For Waitrose sake, I hope the press and the general public have shorter memories than me.
On Sunday night, I couldn’t help but rise from my armchair and punching the air as Canada sealed Olympic gold with an overtime goal in the men’s Ice Hockey final. Over the last two weeks I have been surprised at the amount of time I have spent watching the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Sports I would never have given consideration to previously, such as the Snowboarding and Curling have had me engrossed – Last Friday I even stayed up to watch Amy Williams’ gold medal winning performance in the women’s skeleton – an event I barely knew existed until recently.
Looking at the Winter Olympics from a PR perspective, the communications team for Vancouver have had a number of obstacles to hurdle to maintain a positive message. The death of Georgian lugist Nodar Kumaritashvili in the warm up to the games, the lack of snow and ticket cancellations are just some of the problems which have led to the Winter Olympics’ crisis management machine being pushed into overdrive. It’s clear that Vancouver has pushed heavily on the human interest angle, promoting the Olympic spirit, and trying to change what people will remember the games for in years to come.
In two years time the Olympic Games will be heading to London and the negative press has already been circulating with the London 2012 logo and rising costs of the games going ahead. There are always glitches ahead of major global sporting events, but I wonder what plans the British organising committee have put in place to ensure the smooth running of the event in the face of any unforeseen circumstances? Surely after the events in Canada, this proves that any event organiser (or business) should be prepared for the worst case scenario or at least know who they should contact if a difficult/disastrous situation arise.
Copyright Berkeley PR 2011