EuroBlog Social Media Awards

There’s been a lot of online chatter recently about the value of social media as well as debate about “expertise“.  So I was interested to receive an email from Philip Young regarding the Euprera EuroBlog Social Media Awards 2010 which aims “to showcase the work of Europe’s best PR students and researchers”.

Now this isn’t the usual back-patting “case study” exercise as it seeks to focus on “the work of people who are using social media to discuss and develop new ideas about PR and communication, from students just beginning to explore these exciting new areas through their first blog to experienced researchers who are breaking new ground in theory and practice.”

Interestingly, this is a valid attempt to connect why-to thinking, with how-to doing.

If you want to know more go to:  http://publicsphere.typepad.com/euprerasma, follow @euprera on Twitter or retweet messages using the tag #euprerasma.

As well as the kudos, three award winners will receive a 250 Euro cash prize and be invited to attend the Euprera Spring Symposium in Ghent, Belgium Feb 25-27, 2010.

Advice for PR students

CIPR has just announced the hard-won award of Advanced Certificate and Diploma to the 2008/09 students.  Congratulations to everyone – and well done to those who’ve been successful in the second Unit assignment.

Mind you, there’s hardly time to relax as we’ve just had our first sessions with the 2009/10 intake at Bristol, with groups at Cambridge beginning before the end of the month.

I’ve also just started supervising some final year PR undergraduates for their dissertation at Bournemouth University.

So I thought it might be useful to share some advice for any PR students beginning a hard year of education.  Here are my top five tips for success.  Please feel free to share any of your own.

1. Read, read, read.  You will never pass an assignment or understand what you are studying if you don’t follow up with critical reading.  Contemporary journal articles, classic chapters, accessible textbooks – all should be on your reading list.
2. Write well.  Success in assignments owes a great deal to being able to express your knowledge, thoughts and arguments clearly in grammatically correct, readable language.
3. Make full use of tutor support.  It is surprising how few students take advantage of offers from tutors to read drafts, provide feedback on mock assignments, chat through concepts, discuss reading, answer questions etc.
4. Know exactly what is expected from you.  Take any opportunity to look at previous questions or example answers, check briefing instructions, review marking guidelines, and clarify anything that is not 100% clear.
5. Apply theoretical concepts and models to real life.  PR is an applied subject and finding appropriate examples that enable you to link practice and theory is a great way to gain additional marks and illustrate that you can reflect real world understanding.

I would also recommend Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits book – as the advice there regarding starting with the end in mind, focusing on important and non-urgent matters, etc etc can all be applied to studying.

Product promotion and public relations

The UK government proposal to allow commercial product placement in television programmes means this strategy is likely to migrate finally from the PR department, at least in motor manufacturers, into the marketing and media buying function.

Despite claims made in PR Week that this move is a new opportunity for public relations, I believe the reverse to be the case.

Back in 1962, the entire Ford Cortina Mark 1 press fleet was loaned to the production company of the “Carry on Cabby” movie.  The story is that BMC turned down a request to use its models – and was equally unaware of the huge publicity value of placing the original Mini in the Italian Job, demanding trade or retail price for supplying cars.

Of course, the PR approach which involved building relationships and mutual benefit (we get our car shown and the production company saves money) had its downsides.  An old friend of mine tells a tale of schmoozing at Pinewood Studios to get a car placed in a top film, only to see it parked briefly at the side of the road in a “blink and miss it” scene.

I remember also discussing the merits of loaning a car to Coronation Street as it would be seen as the vehicle responsible for killing a popular character.  As the accident wasn’t the fault of the car concerned (or its driver) and the audience was huge, we agreed to the request.

Already the practice of product placement is much more commercialised.  Whether that’s BMW muscling in on the Aston Martin turf that is James Bond – or Ford’s tie in with American Idol (said to cost $78m a year).

A full on marketing machine is now behind such placements.  When the company is directly paying for exposure, a more hard-nosed relationship is negotiated.  This means the product gets big billing and dedicated air time.

When you look at this from the company and production company perspectives, allowing the extension of product placement into UK commercial television makes sense.  The public can’t skip the in-programme advert, and revenues are generated to replace the lost advertising income that has resulted from this practice.

But from the public perspective, such “endorsement” is clunky and unbelievable.  Ford’s music videos in Idol have been criticised – although personally, I think the large Coke glasses in front of the judges are just as awkward.  In the UK, repeats of the show, we’ve been spared the Ford videos, and the Coke logo has been blurred (but is still recognisable).

Of course, the situation here where labels are hidden or fictional brands created is an equally artificial device.  So, should the Rovers Return pub in Coronation Street become Wetherspoon’s if the money is right?

And, what happens to the baddies if brands don’t want to be associated with them?  Is it a matter that if you don’t pay, your car ends up being the villains’ wheels?  In 24: Redemption, the good guys drive Hyundai vehicles (the sponsors) and the bad ‘uns are in Fords.

In reality, the world if full of competing brands – but in the product placement world that is impossible.  All Transformers become GM cars, Audis are the future according to I Robot, and so on.

As I wrote recently at PR Conversations, it is a real challenge for PR that the media is no longer totally “free to play”.   Advertising money used to enable editorial decisions to be made on the basis of securing the right product for a scene (in the case of cars) rather than the one that would pay the most.

Television and the movie business are undoubtedly the poorer for such blatant commercialisation.  So, perhaps it is right for PR to relinquish this promotional aspect to the marketing function entirely and focus instead on reputation management matters.

Mind you, when it comes to a great match, such as James Bond and Aston Martin (although his preference in literature was for a Bentley), doesn’t the placement truly reflect the reputation of both brands?

A media scheduling approach to social media

Expertise in social and online media is possibly the most over-rated claim at present.  I believe there is room for a wide variety of skills sets and bringing these together in a team approach is undoubtedly necessary for any organisation that wishes to maximise the potential to communicate its messages, and with its constituents, using the developing online arena.

I regularly read Revolution magazine which gives a digital marketing focus to online communications.  This is greatly different to the approach of public relations practitioners – showing a brand perspective with paid for advertising, developing technological solutions (especially branded applications for iPhones etc at present), and so on.

There are some cheap publicity approaches evident – such as the new Puma app which has scantily dressed models stripping if the Dow Jones index goes down (yes, really), but there’s very little here that shows understanding of the PR online mantra of building relationships.

From this marketing perspective, online is all about command and control of channels of communication – in your face and not at all subtle (although occasionally quite clever).

This is where the “old world” traditional television advertising spend has migrated.

So it’s not surprising to see the media buyers applying similar thinking to “new media” – and not understanding that the vast majority of websites, blogs and other privately owned online property needs a lighter tough.

I’ve recently received an email which showed a media buying approach to getting a job advert placed on the MIPAA website that I manage.  This is a website for a not-for-profit members’ organisation. Normally we get an email that provides details of a vacancy and asks us, nicely, if we would place this on the website.  Or, someone may complete the online form.  No charge – we see this as a member benefit.

This occasion was different as the email had a title about copy for a campaign “to go live ASAP on MIPAA!” (caps and exclamation mark as per the original).  It then gave me instructions on embedding a link in our site so responses could be tracked and required confirmation to the author when “the campaign is live”.

Within two hours, the initial email was followed up by a second email asking if I’d received the first, with a third email arriving the next morning.

I do not know the sender, there was no attempt to engage with me and the use of “please” was more a demand than a polite request.  So I responded by asking if this was a request and explaining how I found the approach a little rude.  The reply was:

Morning Heather! If you could get this live later today that would be much appreciated. I was following the media schedule I received my end and this is the format to make the request as clear as possible.

On checking the company behind the email, they are of course, experts in online and social media channels (with a recruitment perspective). 

What they fail to understand is that the way the MIPAA JobSearch service works is not as a piece of online real-estate.  This isn’t free media placement in the marketing sense.  Yes, we will detail jobs that may be of interest to our members – but they work best with the support of myself and our JobSearch co-ordinator.  We know who is looking and who might know who would be good candidates and so on.  We understand about brand fits, career aspirations and so on.

Ours is a personal approach to recruitment and career development – and as such, sending us a “media schedule” email seems rude and rather insulting.  Clearly the person assigned to send out the emails is unaware of what MIPAA is and how we operate.  That isn’t their job, obviously.

The approach is very similar to that seen increasingly in PR practice where juniors are tasked with spamming out releases and monitoring “intent to publish” by annoying journalists with follow-up emails and phone calls.

In both cases, what is needed is a real understanding of how people, relationships and online media works.  Our “media space” may well be free, but we decide what is reported and published.  You have no right to this – for PR or advertising purposes – but if you ask nicely and have something interesting to hear, we may well feature your “copy”.

Media schedulers need to realise that you can’t “buy” something that isn’t for sale.  Money can’t buy our love…

090909 – local media find story

I love the way local media know their market – for example in finding a relevant angle on today’s special date of 090909.

In Leeds, the Yorkshire Evening Post reports a local boy is nine years old today – and he was, by amazing coincidence, born at 9am, with another birthday boy acknowledged in Australia by the Southern Highland News

The Middletown Journal in Ohio celebrates the 90th birthday of a local resident, but the biggies are those resilient pensioners celebrating their 99th birthdays today.

The Argus boasts Olive Creswell of Bexhill (who also made the national news, alongside two police officers getting married – cue the 999 joke).  Back in the US, the Rome News Tribune brings us Henry Lawrence Lansdell’s 99th birthday, the Reporter Herald has Loveland resident Ruth Bronson and the Argus Leader praises George Feay of Sioux Falls.

Each of these would qualify for the Domino Pizza marketing ploy to mark the date – a gift voucher for anyone celebrating their 9th or 99th birthday today.  Now why would anyone report that?

Connections help the PR world go round

I’ve just received an email from someone I met very briefly at the CIPR Wessex annual “Meet the PR Professionals” event at the start of this year.  She was thanking me for an introduction I made to a consultancy, Automotive PR – where she successfully undertook work experience over the Summer.

It is interesting how someone’s career can depend on such small moments – but at the heart of this connection is something that I love about PR. 

Judy (Qian) Wang was a great networker – she was studying for a Masters at Bournemouth University and used the CIPR evening event as an opportunity to meet with local PR professionals and get their advice. 

It is surprising how few PRs realise the importance of building contacts – for example, only a small percentage of the invited 1st and 2nd year Undergraduate students come along to the evening, which could seriously help them secure a work placement opportunity, as well as improving their understanding for their studies.

The reason that Judy’s networking with me was so successful is that I am also a bit of a connector (see Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point).  Through my various roles – and years in PR – I know a lot of people, across a number of circles.  So it was relatively easy for me to think that this might be a useful introduction as I knew Automotive PR are always keen to hear from bright practitioners, especially with Chinese language skills.

This “small world” or six degrees of separation concept is key in PR.  Knowing who to call when you need help, and being a valuable contact readily available for others to call when they need help is part of effective interpersonal relationship building.

Stephen Covey relates this to an emotional bank account – a useful reminder of how we build trust with others, not least by one of his habits: seek first to understand then to be understood.

My role in brokering work experience between Judy and Automotive PR also demonstrates how everything we do in PR doesn’t have to be about an immediate exchange result for ourselves. 

Helping others – even with no instant benefit for yourself – is also essential in relationships, especially if you wish to build trust. 

Now if only a few more businesses, politicians and others would recognise this, wouldn’t we be a step closer to restoring some of the trust that has been harmed by their less than altruistic actions?

Overtime statistics add up to a poor PR analysis

The real take away from the survey conducted by online food site, www.Just-Eat.co.uk, is yet another torturous misuse of statistical analysis. 

The claim of an average 4 hours extra unpaid work per week is not clearly explained.  Is it an arithmetic mean calculation, originating by adding up all the answers given and dividing by the 1,663 participants in the survey?  That seems odd presuming there wasn’t an option to record a minus figure for skiving off early.

The implication that the report tries to generate is that most people are working a considerable amount of time without being paid – actually calculated at £1.5bn unpaid labour per week (based on the average national salary of £23,450 – itself a pretty useless average mean).

Why not present a median average – identifying the mid-point showing that half the population work more than this and half clock in fewer overtime hours?  Or state the mode average which would indicate the figure that is most commonly worked in overtime.

Better still – I’d like to know how many people arrive at work and leave at their scheduled hours within this survey.  We are told that 71% of respondents “regularly work through lunch breaks” – but what does that mean?  Regularly is a subjective measure – and how do we know they don’t go home early instead?

Okay, so the truth is this survey is nothing more than the usual type of “PR survey” – more about generating some coverage than revealing anything that is statistically robust.

This is underlined by the further “analysis” into cities that are above average on their average overtime.  But how many people actually participated in these cities – compared to the population of those cities.

There is a very tenuous link to the company behind the survey promoting its “easy online takeaway ordering” and claiming it had spotted a trend for takeaway orders from offices and other places of work at lunchtime and post-5pm.  The statistical nature of this “trend” is not clarified, but of course, the marketing inspired research proved it.

I recently assessed a student dissertation for the CIPR Diploma which claimed that numeracy was not rated highly as a required skill by PR practitioners.  Leaving aside the statistical validity of that “fact”, the misuse of maths in surveys within the PR world does nothing to demonstrate any real grasp of statistics.

This is important when real understanding of figures is required to justify a place among senior management by PR practitioners and also when they are involved in explaining complex financial data or other statistical information.

Another critical area comes in budgeting and I’m often surprised by how few practitioners seem to have any experience of putting together financial calculations for campaigns.

We often read criticisms about the standard of English in press releases and other communications, so perhaps it is not surprising that practitioners’ arithmetical abilities don’t add up either.

I’m a PR person, let me read your mind

If PR practitioners had a super power, should it be mind-reading?  Claire Wheatcroft has asked me to publicise the CIPR Marcomms Group’s forthcoming evening event: Unlocking the secrets of the brain: the nascent world of neuro PR (taking place in London on 23 September – email marianne@forrester-solutions.com for more information).

The event aims to enable PR practitioners to “harness their own intuitive powers and put these into practice to win business and communicate more effectively” by using applied psychology and neuroscience – which are said to be “new tools”.

It sounds an interesting event.  As someone with a degree in psychology, I know there’s been much studied and written over the 150 years or so that has given us a better understanding of human behaviour.

However, I wonder about the ethical implications of seeing psychology and now, neuroscience, as something to be used to our own ends.  Of course, everyone uses persuasive and other techniques every day – even babies and dogs do it!

But should I be able to use an understanding of your brain – probably without your knowledge – to influence you?  Does it depend on my motives or if it’s in your own best interests?

Is using psychology and neuroscience different to using intuition and good interpersonal skills to build rapport and influence through open dialogue?

Toni Muzi Falconi has just written in a comment on a post at PR Conversations:

I will dare to say that psychology is more important (to PR practitioners) than good writing…

Arguably, good writing needs an understanding of psychology – and much of what the public and PR professionals understand to be persuasive communications derives from psychological studies in the 1950s, particularly Carl Hovland’s Yale Communication Model.

Should PR practitioners equally be following the research from neuroscientists to understand people’s thoughts and actions?  Will it bring some holy grail of influencing human behaviour?  And if it does – should it be allowed to?

PR graduate recruitment: Why can’t I get a job? Try volunteering with Leukaemia Research

What should you do if you are one of those graduates, reported by PR Week who can’t get a job?

Clearly you shouldn’t try to sue your college unless you want the global infamy of Trina Thompson.  But good career opportunities don’t come to those who sit around sulking – they result from taking initiative and demonstrating the same skills in finding that opening that you will bring to an employer.

Whilst appreciating that many graduates have bills to pay, a volunteer role can be a great addition to your CV – giving you new saleable skills as well valuable contacts.

Serena Snoad (a former graduate of the CIPR Advanced Certificate with us in Cambridge a couple of years ago) has been in touch with an interesting opportunity for a volunteer intern in the London based Leukaemia Research Press Office.

The UK’s leading blood cancer charity is looking for an Intern to volunteer in their Press Office.

You will be assisting the team with their sports and celebrity events and helping to raise awareness for the Charity. The team will provide media support for varied events these include the PR for the launch of Sir Ian Botham’s 2010 Walk, London Bikeathon, Triathlons, Forget-Me-Not Walks and special celebrity events.

For this role you will need to be enthusiastic, a good communicator, extremely well organised and calm under pressure.

Hours are 10am-4pm, four days a week for three months. Travel expenses will be paid.

Contact Serena via the LRF website for more details.

Motoring Writers make YouTube music video with Stefanie Hertel

Some members of the Guild of Motoring Writers – accompanied by a few manufacturer PR representatives – recently went on the Guild Classic driving event to Germany.  I’m not sure of the background, but somehow this led to a YouTube music video with Stefanie Hertel, an Alpine folk singer – which is apparently about the virtues of men.

The Guild’s latest edition of it newsletter, Update, does describe this as “just one in a series of surreal happenings on the BMW Guild Euro Classic” as the attendees “somehow got caught up in the filming of a Kitsch music-cum- travelogue programme for German TV.”

The choreography of the dads’ dancing scene at the end is a classic in itself – even funnier when you know the participants.  Is this positive PR or good publicity for the Guild?  Well word of the video is moving faster than a Ferrari’s acceleration among MIPAA members and motoring journalists, so in these tough times for the industry, it’s definitely giving us all a laugh.