SurvivingPR
games PR-ing. music lover. bookworm. blogger. social media fanatic. cinephile. polyglot. fashion admirer.
So, I will mostly blog about relevant PR related topics and probably (too much) about my love for coffee.
People think that liaising is just a fancy world for not doing any work and answering the occasional email in disdain.
Let’s take an example. Today, in the office, we were talking about a multinational company with a small marketing and PR team in the UK (1-2 people). They had just been pitched by a few agencies and decided to drop their previous one (in what they regarded was all of a sudden - though, surely, contracts are dated). To this, someone raised a point that they should instead fire their internal marketing team as they’re useless anyway.
I’m not a crusader on this but I disagreed saying that their job was to liaise. “Ah, liaise” was said in a sarcastic voice. Now, let it be noted, as someone who deals with multinational companies and is in need of assets on a daily basis, I’m in no way a fan of the slow, long, approval-filled processes that create a long chain of back and forth emailing. However I do believe they serve a purpose.
That one person in marketing is your link to everyone. You address them for assets, approvals, data, designs, information and upcoming plans and they (slowly) deliver - be you a PR agency, supplier and at times even consumer. Without that person it would be chaos. Misguided members of the public would email your director asking for “a pic” thinking their request is of so high importance that it has to reach the top - but only to get lost in the binary haze of an overflowing Outlook and it wouldn’t get done.
Everyone has their purpose in a company. Even if that is to liaise.
Some from my family:
10 things you should never say to a social media manager
In fact, I’ve heard all of them.
Now I’m just kind of sad.
Funny. Yet kind of sad.
Can I just say.. It’s absolutely awesome when you work with people towards something you’re all passionate about and the efforts show it. And it’s in the national papers and people engage with the article and share it and discuss on the topic.
Why board games are making a comeback
Forget Cluedo this Christmas. The new ‘hardcore’ card- and dice-based games are satisfying and fun
(…)
Read it here
According to a PR Newswire study, more visuals means more engagement…what do you think?
It’s definitely true.
In a world where we look for quick information and we’re used to communicating in 140 characters, a picture is worth a thousand views.
Adding videos gives more depth and further info while downloadable content makes it easy to review and use the information later without the hassle of reconnecting/searching for it again.
On that note, cool chart.
Meet the popular kids, the jocks, the nerds, and the new kids of the public relations profession.
These groups affect where people sit, where they eat, with whom they hang out, and even with whom they are allowed to talk (depending on rank in popularity).
All of us might be out of high school, but we will never escape the lessons we learned from the jocks, cheerleaders, stoners, and hipsters.
No matter your group in high school, some point you interacted with those of another clique. This is when your PR skills started to form.
You, as a future PR pro, started finding a common ground to talk and build a relationship with them. Obviously, this may not have been a relationship in which you invested a large amount of time, but you may have benefited from this relationship down the road.
You could have been a jock asking a nerd to help with homework or a band geek asking a cheerleader for a makeover. You used your interpersonal skills to communicate and build a relationship, just as PR professional build relationships with clients and media.
Here are four classic high school groups, and their PR industry equivalent:
The popular kids: Crisis communicators
“Mean Girls” is a hilarious, cliché-packed high school movie that shows crisis management at its best. The popular girls, known as “plastics,” are constantly in crisis mode to ensure they maintain their status.
For these girls, every day is a new challenge full of surprises. One moment they could be on top of the world, the most popular girls in school, and then something happens—a stain on their shirt or wearing sweat pants twice in one week—that means disaster for their status and reputation.
In other words, they are the ultimate crisis communicators—constantly on their toes and combatting negative press (traditional or otherwise) at every pass.
The jocks: Executives
In most movies about high school, jocks are known as the attractive, rude, and sometimes dumb characters. Think about Biff (played by Thomas F. Wilson) from “Back to the Future,” Greg Tolan (played by classic ‘80s jock/bully William Zabka) from “Just One of the Guys,” or Big Red (played by Lindsay Sloane) from “Bring It On.” They rule the school, often with an iron fist.
Remind you of anyone in your office? Perhaps someone who occupies the C-suite? They can be terrible, roaming the office looking for lunch tables to overturn (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Then again, they can also be jocks with hearts of gold, such as Emilio Estevez’s character from “The Breakfast Club,” who falls for someone far from his social stratus.
The nerds: Social media’s early adopters
The nerds are always the unsung heroes in high school movies, or in some films, the full-blown heroes. Thanks to their nerdy prowess, they can wow an audience (“Revenge of the Nerds”) or take on an epic adventure (“Goonies”).
It’s kind of like social media’s early adopters. While the executives (jocks) are ridiculing them for not focusing on what’s important, they’re laying the foundation for fame, fortune, and success in the future.
The new kid: Young PR pros
When the Ren McCormack character in “Footloose” (first played by Kevin Bacon, later played by Kenny Wormald in the 2011 remake) arrives in the small town of Bomont, he’s faced with a series of challenges, from the authorities to the high school bullies. And what does he do? He dances his way out of trouble.
If only young PR pros—the new kids in the office, like Ren—had it so easy.
They’re faced with new challenges every day, sometimes they navigate these challenges with skills, other times they stumble. But never estimate a new PR professional with a good attitude, a lot of enthusiasm, and some skill.
Like Ren, they’ll not only knock your socks off with their moves, but maybe even change the establishment along the way.
Matthew Dougherty is a public relations assistant at BLASTmedia (@BLASTmediaPR), a PR and social media agency in Indianapolis. Follow him on Twitter @matt_door_t.
(Image via)
Interesting.
Just a while ago I was saying I needed something to queue up my tweets, but I didn’t know about Buffer. I gave it a shot just today and I have to say I’m really pleased.
It can connect to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn about queue up posts which it will then publish throughout the day.
The one thing I’m a little dissatisfied with is that I can’t change when my tweets go out. Or maybe I just haven’t found the option yet.
And as a little suggestion I think they should add Tumblr to the profiles. Even though Tumblr has a queue you can easily arrange, it would be faster to do it all in one go, alongside Facebook and Twitter.
Tweet-queuing service Buffer has introduced a very significant update that allows users of the popular social sharing service to enjoy its benefits direct from Twitter.com. A new Buffer extension for Google… http://goo.gl/6PRH4
I have a new blog post on the Wordpress blog about assertiveness in the workplace - it’s for one of my last assignments at Uni ever, if you could have a read and leave some opinions it would be great.
Thank you.
Every year here at Solent, our CIPR representative organises a little liaison event between students and PR professionals called Meet the Professionals. This year I’d like to think it was very successful. Not just because we had our own hashtag which you can see in the title (although it was very helpful) or the fact that it was organised by the lovely Claire Hodson, our own course mate, but also because of the number of people that turned up and especially left satisfied.
The event kicked off with two guest lectures, the first one was given by Bill Reed, Managing Director at St. Cross Group. He talked about the importance of opinion leaders and their influence as well as how to manage communication with this stakeholder group. I couldn’t help but think about one of our most recent course discoveries, and might I add a heavily used tool this academic year, the VMM (Valid metrics matrix). The way in which Mr. Reed explained his topic linked in perfectly with what we had been introduced in our PR Strategy unit.
This lecture was shortly followed by David Clare’s presentation (Programme Executive at 33 Digital) on social and digital media and the many uses these have in the PR world. I found this very helpful not only because I am writing my dissertation about luxury brands and their use of social media, but also on a personal level. He encouraged us to try as many social networks as possible and to experiment with our profiles while keeping in mind how we can make them work for us.
After the two lectures we went on to the “speed dating” part of the night where, in small groups, we were able to discuss with the professionals, ask them questions and find out more about what it is they do. Just like last year, I found this part of the evening to be extremely interesting as we had the opportunity to learn new things about the industry from active practitioners.
I noticed that, while I was at the first table the answer to the question “What exactly do you want to do after uni?” was a total mistery but as I was going from table to table asking questions and interacting with the PRos I found myself forming an opinion about the field I wanted to work in. And I observed the same thing happening with my fellow students. By the end of the night I had a pretty good idea about I believed would suit me and where I could use my skills better in the PR world.
All in all, I can say I enjoyed this evening of networking and even gained something more from it, not just contacts, but also an idea of what I’d like to do in the future. I can only hope that my fellow course mates felt the same way and that the professionals enjoyed it as much as we have.
So the Easter holiday starts soon and my parents will be visiting for a bit, haven’t seen them in a while and then… I got myself a pretty nice two weeks working at a pretty cool project right here in Southampton!
I’m so lucky, I’ll get to work on the Social Brands 100, a ranking for brands based on their social media engagement. A local branding and social media agency called Headstream is compiling it and I’ll be working on it.
This is so interesting to me because I’ve always been curious about social media metrics and it’ll actually help with my dissertation research. Can’t wait!
