Blog will be closing as I move it to my own site and out of WordPress
Please see www.illuminatecommunications.co.uk from next week
All this bad news is the media’s fault…isn’t it?
A recent blog post written for the Guardian Voluntary Network, at time of writing it is among the ‘picks of the week’. Read it here
PR pitfalls… have you fallen into these traps?
A post I wrote for the Guardian website this week, read it here
Do comment on the Guardian site if you’d like to, cheers.
A time to think…
I recently moved house and took several weeks off work to painstakingly pack many years worth of my own and (mostly) my partner’s belongings into various boxes and containers. The last night of packing became rather hectic when the washing machine flooded the kitchen and by the time we arrived in our new place, neither of us had had any sleep for two days. It culminated in such a stressful bank holiday weekend exchange with the estate agents that I was glad to return to work and to my clients’ offices on the Tuesday morning.
When I arrived home, my partner who had taken the day off work was looking very serene on the sofa and everything in the house, including the full boxes, was exactly how I had left it.
“What did you do today?” I politely asked, restraining myself from mentioning that nothing was unpacked.
“I was thinking.” He announced, very proudly. I dare not ask what about.
While this may seem like a very exasperating experience, it occurred to me how rarely most of us set aside time to think. I didn’t used to set much time aside until I was lucky to have a boss who encouraged me to stop and think about particular challenges and issues facing the team I was running. She’d be pleased if I went for a stroll or worked from home when I needed to plan and never chained me to a desk to do so. It really helped me, even if it did take me a while to get used to doing this without guilt. Where does the guilt come from? Is it because we associate working with running around noisily or sending lots of emails, writing lengthy reports and hammering the phones? And how do you quantify how long it takes to come up with a good idea or solution? Is ‘thinking’ just an excuse (by some) for being a slacker, thus spoiling it for all of us?
One of the services I offer to my clients is facilitating brainstorms and ideas sessions with groups who want to spend some time thinking. We play games and do structured exercises to encourage creativity around a particular theme. Not only do we come up with good ideas on the day but we give ourselves ‘permission’ to think and encourage participants to hold regular sessions in the future, keeping the momentum up and the ideas flowing.
If you have a particular challenge facing your team, which a creative ideas session could possibly solve, then don’t hesitate to give me a shout. If you have the solution to a boyfriend who won’t unpack the boxes then please tell me quietly… I may build it into future workshops.
Don’t burn them!
The phrase ‘never burn bridges’ is good advice and I have been surprised to ‘re-meet’ people I know in different circumstances as life unfolds. Particularly in the current economic climate not only are my contacts popping up in different types of roles than before but they are also getting back in touch, both professionally and personally. And in my non-work life I have even been lucky enough to attend the wedding party of a very dear ex-boyfriend who has married a fantastic woman. Re-meeting friends there was a peculiar feeling – like the film Back to the Future.
So, how do you ensure you meet and stay in touch with ‘the right’ people? I have previously read advice on networking that advises you to seek out the ‘useful’ contacts at events and move on quickly from those who talk for too long or who are not well-connected. This is all very well when you read it on a website or in a book and ok when you are in control but what if you find people doing it to you? I have had this experience for the first time this year and I would advise never to visibly snub someone at an event – it feels extremely bad…
It has happened to me this year because my partner is ‘somebody’ in the media. Instead of being the confident PR expert networker I am now often a ‘plus-one’ at a variety of fun events. This is great but unfamiliar and I find myself being snubbed by women and spoken to rudely my men who do not even ask what I do. I have been asked if I’m ‘just there for the food’, I have been ignored entirely and people have spoken to my partner as if I’m invisible or worse have made rude comments about our age difference. I can tell you it doesn’t feel good. I love networking in my own right and it comes naturally, but being a ‘plus-one’ is new and uncomfortable to me. I need to learn to use it as an opportunity and not be offended when people grab my partner’s business card and either do not take mine or do not offer their own.
However I have renewed my appetite for meeting new faces after a recent event. I was lucky enough to attend the first BBC Proms concert this year as the aformentioned ‘plus-one’. As described above, many people I spoke to at the reception were visibly more interested in getting my partner’s business card than mine. Having suffered 3 women grabbing my partner’s card and snubbing mine we made our way to the concert in the Royal Albert Hall. I clumsily walked backwards into a very tall man, as I made space for people to step into the row we were on the end of. ‘Oh Hello! How are you?’ Said the tall man, smiling at me… It was the Director General of the BBC. Would I have remembered me if I was him from my days at the charity Media Trust at which he was/is on the board? Maybe not but I admire him for remembering me and it renewed my appetite for networking and for remembering those who I may not immediately think of as ‘useful’. Tonight I am lucky to be attending a film premiere for a new action movie, not immediately a source of new clients but you never know. Now all I need to think about is what to wear…
Get offline and into the country
So I’m working with the lovely sounddelivery making sure as many people as possible know about the YHA’s doit4real summer camps this year.
We’re promoting the affordable summer camps to parents and kids via radio; podcasts; video; print and online media, because we believe that the opportunity to send your kids (aged 10-19) on an activity summer camp for £79 is fantastic: almost too good to be true.
We’ve been chatting to the camp leaders, to the parents of kids, some of whom are carers themselves about why getting out into the country for 5 nights in the summer is good for the soul.
To send your kids on camp go to www.doit4real.org.uk
If you’re a member of the press and want to find out more give us a call on 020 7993 6340 (media only)
Navigation and new beginnings
I’ve recently moved house and have been navigating the local area by foot, bike and car. I’ve figured out the good places to buy fresh meat, get my hair cut, have a pint. Also identified where the pleasant walks are and have said hello to a few of the neighbours. (As it’s not in London some people have even said hello back and been kind enough to share their supplies of recycling bags). I even received a free box of slightly unpleasant tasting tropical flavoured Fanta and a bottle of powdered milk from the Post Office as a moving in gift (all you need for a fun night in apparently).
This moving has led me to thinking about how to get the best from a new move, especially a new job. Where appropriate I’ve always begun a new PR job by sending out an email to my close contacts to tell them of my move (as I did last week to my mates in reference to my domestic move). I’ve found that the responses and encouragement have opened opportunities for conversations about the new client, led to useful meetings and enabled some ‘quick wins’ which reassure both the client and you as the newbie. Where appropriate it’s handy to send out an informal media release about your move, of course with the permission of the relevant people.
If you relocate to an office where there is no formal induction it’s still worth setting up a series of short coffee meetings with colleagues in different departments and, where possible, grabbing the chance to stand up in front of the department or company to say a bit about yourself before you lose the excuse of being new.
What else? It’s handy to find something about yourself to help people easily remember you, whether it’s because you bring in cakes on your first day, make a good cuppa or help someone out who is drowning in photocopying. Don’t let yourself be remembered for getting horrifically drunk at the end of your first week or for wearing the most revealing outfits…
Managing your own internal PR can be the foundations for a successful career move and make work a lot more motivating. It’s usually a nerve-racking time, so try and ring a good friend or former colleague the night before your first day and get them to remind you of some of your big PR successes in the recent past, which will help remind you that you absolutely can do this and wow everyone with your skills. Which you will.
3 hours with some inspiring arts
I spent this morning with some inspiring people on the Clore Leadership course and led a discussion about online PR. Notes shared below for anyone who is interested. Bear in mind that the notes are aimed at beginners.
‘Tell The Internet’: online PR and other pitfalls
by Helen Beckett, Illuminate Communications.
Our 3 hour session on online PR will be interactive, practical and conversational. I have also jotted down some useful prompt questions and links to resources, below, which you may find useful during the session and afterwards. Feel free to contact me via www.illuminatecommunications.co.uk
Where are you now? Some questions and thoughts about your current online PR.
What does your (or your organisation’s) online profile look like and how do you track it?
What are people saying about the topics and themes that are important to you (and them)?
How do you want to use online communications – what do you wish to achieve? For example, is it to drive sales of tickets, increase your profile as a thought leader on a particular topic or raise your brand profile? Are your existing comms achieving this? What about competitors… how are they succeeding online?
Think about your online voice, especially if blogging… are you writing as an individual and is your voice authentic? What about others who are already talking about your brand… what opportunities do they offer?
Have you practiced using online communications channels? Writing a blog about your own garden, pock band or book club for example, could be a really good way to get to grips with using blogs, wikis and photo-sharing and a chance to learn about tagging and how to link up with people all over the world who share your passion.
Where do you want to be? What does success look like?
Once you know what you want to achieve, how will you measure it? Are you prepared to change your approach if the plan is not working after, say, 6 months or a year?
What methods of online comms are you using or do you aspire to use? Blogs; online news; photo sharing; video sharing; gaming… think about all the
options, what you admire that others are doing and what your scope is. Think about the audiences for different channels; accessibility and your online voice.
What do you have to spend? Also consider time management and resource, moderation and monitoring are big eaters of time.
How do you get there? What will you start doing or begin to do differently?
Getting the buy-in of your organisation may be key: you don’t want to lose your job over a well-intentioned blog. Is it appropriate to use funding to pay for a new online initiative?
Use examples of campaigns you admire that similar organisations have succeeded in to help you achieve buy-in. At the same time allow yourself a margin for error, give yourself permission to fail and re-evaluate your project because online comms can backfire.
Are you going to brief an agency to raise your online profile or do you have the capacity in-house?
Enlist the help of existing supporters and well-establish users of social media. Even something as simple as getting all of your supporters to tag relevant photos they take or use a Twitter hashtag can start positive ripples for you.
Don’t let it take over the dayjob. If online comms is just a small part of your role make sure you are allocated adequate resource for a new campaign, if you agree to do this in your spare time, as many I know do, it can become a real chore and take on a disproportionate amount of importance. Be realistic, do you really need to be on YouTube, Twitter, Bebo, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn if your campaign is targeting retired grandparents? At the same time don’t make assumptions that an older audience will not use newer technologies, find out about the usership of the channels you’re employing.
What about mobile? Have you ever looked at your website on an iPhone or other mobile phone? Mobile is particularly useful where fundraising or voting is the call to action.
Share your experiences, online networks can be a wonderful source of support and encouragement and are always ‘on’.
Useful resources (starting point for further discussion/research)
• Google alerts & Google analytics. Google grants (for search optimisation)
• Twitter (micro blogging)
• Facebook groups
• YouTube – look at branded channels and also take a look at the RNLI ‘mystery package’ campaign.
• Wikipedia and other wikis
• Media Trust and Bright One Comms (free resources for charities)
• Flickr and other photo-sharing websites (look at tagging)
• RSS feeds
• Online dashboard
• Community Newswire
• The Guardian ‘Comment is free’
• Online newsletters such as Popbitch and B3ta
• Themed forums and sector specific blogs such as Mumsnet; Netmums and Moneysavingexpert.com
• BBC news alerts
• Media monitoring such as Meltwater and Durrants
• Hitwise
• iTunes
New York presentation by www.illuminatecommunications.co.uk
I recently presented to New York students (in London) on UK public sector PR. We looked at how to communicate when your audience is everyone. I’ll post up some of the key points below. My biggest challenge was talking to an audience from a country which I have never done PR in and who know little about our PR and our public sector. It was a long but fun 2 and a half hours… lots of two-way conversations and practical exercises.
How to Eat an Elephant: communicating when your audience is everyone (In this case ‘UK residents’)
- Do be realistic about expectations
- Do focus on the highest possible circulation (eg national news)
- Do segment your work into themes and audiences eg: motoring or women’s press; we targeted agony aunts with great success
- Do plan ahead 6mths or 12mths
- Do work with other departments to share/reuse/recycle info and ideas
- Do be innovative and don’t be discouraged
- Don’t forget to do your research:
what works? what customer research already exists?
- Don’t forget who your customer is (and undertake or refer back to stakeholder research)
- Don’t be afraid to piggyback on other people’s stories
- Don’t get sidetracked but DO be flexible
- Don’t allow tedious sign-off procedures to get in the way of creativity and big ideas
- Be accountable…keep your communications trails
- Be aware of data protection laws, propriety rules and guidelines (eg purdah) and procurement processes
- Factor in lengthy sign-off times
- Check all your facts…twice
These are some of the key points from our discussions. Someone pointed out that ‘purdah’ may be offensive to some people as it has religious meaning but I have not yet found another word to describe the period between when the election is called and election day, during which external communications almost shut down. If anyone has another word let me know and I’ll update future presentations.
HJB
How to write a pitch
A friend recently asked me how to write a PR pitch and so I started jotting down some notes. This is a quick ‘PR by numbers’ but of course the best pitches and projects are those that are not formulaic. Therefore, feel free to take these notes as a starting point if useful and then try to turn your pitch into something altogether different and new.
1) Where are you now?
Media audit – look at coverage and opinions also look at customer
research if available
Also look at current positioning statements and key messages
2) Where do you want to be?
This is a chance to re-iterate the brief and consider what success
would look like, you may wish to use examples of campaigns you admire
3) How do you get there?
Plot out your tactics, actions, timescale and creative ideas such as:
- Journalist contact
- Stunts
- Photography ideas
- Social media
- Celebrity endorsement
- Partnerships with media company or other commercial or charity partners
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Business-to-business profiles – including forward features
- Feature ideas for consumer publications
- Case studies
- Advertorials (if relevant although I’m personally not a big fan of them : ) )
- Research ideas including detailed reports as well as quick YouGov
type of research
- New launches eg products or new initiatives
- Statements from senior members of the organisation that set out a
new ideas and thought leadership
4) EVALUATION – how will you do this?
5) Costs
6) Timescale
7) Any questions?
Try not to use too many slides and be able to explain your idea without slides. Use pictures not words on any handouts and be comfortable going ‘off script’. Take some extra ideas up your sleeve in case you are challenged to suggest alternatives.
Good luck!!!
