Category Archives: Social media

The spies we love

Social media, Talking to your customers, Working with the media

You’ve got to admire GCHQ’s recent campaign to find its modern day code-breakers. A great swathe of coverage has already been achieved across broadcast, print and online media for its ‘Can you Crack It?’ campaign www.canyoucrackit.co.uk, challenging those who fancy their puzzle solving abilities to come up with an answer to what seems a random collection of numbers and letters.

What I particularly like is that it appears they’ve pushed this out by carefully seeding it online – nothing so gauche and obvious as a press release for the government super sleuths.

Again it shows how the communications world is changing in terms of how you can execute an idea – but it still needs a good idea at its heart. And this is a good one.

Fortunately there are still three days left to crack it….I might need three years.

Slaying the media beast: PR professionals should be pleased, there is competition in the jungle

Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Working with the media

There was a time when the media pretty much dominated the world of public relations. Want to reach that particular client segment? Try the trade press. What about those potential investors? The business press. Looking for mass exposure? A good piece in a national should do it.

The big beast
It is fair to say that the media was the apex predator; the big beast which every PR practitioner would have to wrestle with, sometimes playfully, sometimes not, and usually on a daily basis. The good news, for PR people anyway, is that the media in all its print or online forms no longer has the jungle to itself (stretched that metaphor enough yet?).

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations defines PR as being:

“…the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.”

That last word – ‘publics’ – whether it’s your clients, suppliers, investors or employees, is critical in that social media has upset the old order and provided PR professionals with a whole new set of tools and channels to communicate with their publics in an increasingly targeted and segmented way. And best of all, you can actually have a two-way conversation…I think that helps that bit about mutual understanding.

Let Hercules do what he may…
That’s not to say that media relations has had its day, but when you’re considering your next communications project, the media relations element should arguably take its turn and queue up to have its merits considered like everyone else – of course, you shouldn’t expect journalists to sit down and take it. They can still be wild (sorry, I couldn’t resist it) but gone are the days when they dominated, which can only be a good thing for PR professionals and the businesses they promote.

Is the press release, like the parrot, really dead?

Social media, Working with the media

“It is an ex-release: it has ceased to be” – apologies to all Pythonists for that sacrilege, but I’ve been wondering whether the press release, rather than the parrot, has had its day. Have a Google and you’ll see that the debate rages unabated amongst the communications fraternity.

It’s life Jim, but…
Certainly the distribution method of press releases has changed out of all recognition, and the channels open to corporates to share news have expanded hugely,  but I don’t think that social media has quite removed the need for the venerable old bringer of news quite yet.

Relevant and readable
Media outlets, whether newspapers, trade magazines or blogs, still take information directly from company press releases – sometimes as a direct copy and paste, and I think that most journalists will still prefer to have a well written and well targeted release.

And therein remains the secret: making sure a release really does have news in it; is not full of corporate flimflam; is well crafted and straight to the point; and, above all, is relevant to a title’s readership is still the key.

As for the parrot, it has, I’m afraid, ‘ceased to be’.

Social media: think before you ‘do’

Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees

If there was a prize for the creation of new or at least reinvented verbs, then step forward social media. Blog it, tweet it, poke me, message me; there is, indeed, an awful lot of ‘doing’ going on. Which is nice for those who like to see a bit of action but those shiny new tools in the box shouldn’t allow you to be detracted from the thinking behind your communications.

Beware the irrestible lure
The pressure to utilise social media can be irresistible but don’t forget to ask the most obvious questions first; who are you trying to communicate with and what are you trying to say? The audience and the message are still the stars of the show. Only when you’ve got that cracked should you be thinking about how best to deliver your communications and, whisper it, social media tools might not always be the best way of getting the message through.

Social media: don’t be a Dooce

Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Working with the media

I recently came across the phrase ‘to be Dooced’ which apparently relates to a blogger (www.dooce.com) who got herself into hot water with her boss for making some disparaging remarks about work on her own blog and subsequently lost her job, hence, ‘to be dooced’. This happened back in 2003, pretty much a lifetime ago in social media time, but it’s rare that someone from office worker to celebrity isn’t getting themselves into hot water thanks to their blog, tweet, facebook posting or simply emailing something they really should not have.

In the work environment, it amazes me the amount of care and thought people will put into their quote in a press release which then has to be approved by Uncle Tom Cobley and all, but when it comes to tweeting something; bang, out it goes.

More straightaway
Of course that’s the real beauty of social media; the ability to be so direct, quick and as Lola (Charlie and Lola for those without children) might say, more straightway.

As ever, the medium of the message changes but the rules don’t. Take a minute just to think about your tweet, blog etc and think, would I be happy to have it broadcast on the News at 10 or splashed on the front page of The Times?

Or maybe just imagine what your boss/client would think? They’re watching you.