Archive | March, 2009

Meet the media: Alan Burkitt-Gray on PR

31 Mar
Source: Alan Burkitt-Gray

Source: Alan Burkitt-Gray

Next in my “Meet the media” series is Alan Burkitt-Gray the editor of Global Telecoms Business where he has been for the past eight years. Prior to becoming the editor of this prestigious telco title, Alan was the editor of Government Computing. He also spent seven years as a freelancer writing for Broadcast, Computing and a variety of other technology/business magazines.

Alan has answered the questions with brilliant honesty which makes for great reading. For example when asked about working in PR: “I’m not a PR person. The skills are different, and they’re skills I don’t have,” or has Alan black listed any agencies because of bad practices “Good PR is done by individuals not companies and I know who I get on with and trust.” You can’t say fairer than that.

Paul Stallard: Do you think that most PR professionals read the titles you write for before contacting you?
Alan Burkitt-Gray: “Most” implies I’ve done an accurate survey. I’m amazed by the number of people who send emails about new product launches. A quick glance at our website will show that we don’t report new product launches, except when they’re on the scale of the iPhone. A new router, or a new release of billing software: no.

PS: What is your top tip for PR professionals?
ABG: Know your client and understand the publications you’re pitching.

PS: How has the increase of social media affected traditional journalism?
ABG: What’s traditional journalism? Journalism has always moved fast as the technology of production and distribution has moved. I’ve been using Twitter since mid-2008, following and being followed by a group of technology-oriented journalists and PR people (twitter.com/alanburkittgray); now Twitter links that I post are the second biggest producer of visits to the Global Telecoms Business site.

PS: Have you had to change your writing style for online copy to incorporate SEO? Continue reading →

Tags: , , , ,

Microblogging event in London

30 Mar
WWW.media140.com

WWW.media140.com

Media 140 is scheduled to host a microblogging event in London which is is claiming will bring together journalists, bloggers and publishers to share and discuss the use and impact of Twitter and other social media tools in their industry.

To date, The Times, Guardian, Reuters have been confirmed to attend where they will discuss topics such as:

Some of the topics for the event will include:
- how to persuade journalists to take and use twitter seriously.
- what is news worthy, how do you recognise it?
- breaking the news, how you can potentially undermine your own news room
- will local community create local news through microblog technologies?
- tools of the trade, what works and what doesn’t?
- is microblogging and twitter really a game changer?

Could be interesting. Especially when you consider the interview I just blogged about.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Media interviews on Twitter

30 Mar
Source: Paul Stallard

Source: Paul Stallard

At my technology PR agency, Twitter is a trusted and constant tool which we use to share ideas, look for inspiration and communicate with the media. Today, however it took on another dimension when one of my clients used Twitter to conduct an interview with a journalist.

Female entrepreneur of the year, Margaret Manning CEO at Reading Room offered some comment on the use of Twitter within the work place to Real Business magazine. Having reviewed the comment the journalists decided they wanted to find out more but instead of requesting some written comment or speaking to Margaret on the phone, the journalists wanted to conduct the interview over 140 characters.

This is the first time I have arranged an interview to take place on Twitter and I have to say I am excited about seeing the results. Watch this space to see how it went.

Tags: , , , , ,

A great moto

29 Mar

I have just spent a wonderful couple of hours mucking about at the Roald Dahl museum. Having spent a small fortune in the shop buying some Quentin Blake pictures and cards from my childhood, I saw a piece of text on the back of one card which I really liked.

On the wall in front of me at work, I have a few bits and pieces to remind and inspire me during the day, holiday snaps, the family, pieces of coverage, that sort of thing.  Well remembering a conversation I had with someone last week about how to deal with being re-buffed on a pitch or being spoken to badly by a journalist, the text on the back of this card is exactly the sort of thing I like to look at and keep going:

“You mustn’t despair!” cried Mr Wonka. “Nothing is impossible. You watch.”

Tags: , ,

Buying PR – Andy Lulham, Betfair

26 Mar
Source: Andy Lulham

Source: Andy Lulham

Last week I spoke to Jo Baker the European PR manager at Pegasystems and this week I have continued my ‘Buying PR’ series by speaking to the UK PR manager at Betfair, Andy Lulham. Betfair is a successful Tech Track 100 company and due to the fact that it is an online company I was particularly interested to find out how Andy saw the influence of social media on modern PR.

Paul Stallard: Have you ever worked at a PR agency?
Andy Lulham: Yes, I spent almost three years working at a boutique sports agency across some fantastic accounts. Whilst I don’t consider it vital to have worked both at an agency and in-house to understand the world of PR, I do think it helps with regards to understanding the politics of the industry. I very much enjoyed working at an agency and also now as a client, although the two can be very different.

PS: What most annoys you about PR agencies?
AL: Lack of research and attention to detail. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , ,

Who writes blog content?

25 Mar

My colleague Rebecca Wheeler wrote an interesting blog today about a survey from JD Power & Associates. According to the survey nearly four in 10 bloggers say they would pay news organisations to reuse news content. I agree with Rebecca that I don’t see this as the saviour for newspapers as to be honest bloggers can copy their news for free and just add some comment relatively easily.

However, this story did came in the same week that I saw Guy Kawasaki is paying two people to ghost write his posts on Twitter.

Are we approaching a new dawn for bloggers? If you can buy content for your blog and pay people to write your content on social networks such as Twitter is there a danger that your personality gets lost?

I was talking to another colleague Jo Jamieson the other day who writes a personal blog as well as the day job one. She met up with some bloggers from her community and they all expressed how they thought that she spoke exactly the same way as she wrote on her blog. I try hard to do a similar thing here and feel that is part of the charm of blogging. Surely, if content is not being generated by the owner of a blog it will lose its personality?

What do you think?

Tags: , , ,

Meet the Media: Peter Whitehead on PR

24 Mar
Source: Peter Whitehead

Source: Peter Whitehead

Continuing my ‘Meet the Media’ series I was lucky enough to pin Peter Whitehead the editor of FT’s Digital Business section down and ask him a few questions about the best way to approach him, his top tips for PR professionals and the long term future of hard copy publications.

Peter has answered with some interesting points but he has also illustrated that certain sections of our industry is continuing to make elementary mistakes. If you are a PR professional, please read the answers below before you pick up the phone to the guitar wielding Mr Whitehead.

Name: Peter Whitehead
Title: Editor of the FT’s Digital Business section

Paul Stallard: Do you think that most PR professionals read your section in the FT before contacting you?
Peter Whitehead: I think the vast majority that contact me are familiar with the section and very expert on the sector, or at least their bit of it. There are odd exceptions, of course, and they stick out a mile.

PS: What is your pet hate of PR?
PW: Phoning to tell me they’ve sent an e-mail. I’m pretty much a one-man band and so have to use just one communication channel and e-mail is the one that works best. Also, it’s annoying whenPRs ask for information that is already freely available on the website – usually who’s writing a particular piece. It means that if I can’t remember I have to look it up – just as they could have done in the first place.

PS: What is the best way to contact you? Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , ,

How does Chris Moyles use Twitter?

23 Mar
Source: @Paul_Stallard

Source: @Paul_Stallard

I had unfortunately tuned my alarm clock into the wrong radio station this morning and was woken up by the sound of Chris Moyles and his band of yes men on Radio One. I was half way to reaching for the dial to quickly change the station when he started talking about how he was using Twitter.

Rather unsurprisingly, he is using the tool to fuel his ego by trying to get as many followers as possible. Similar to when he set up his Facebook page, Chris is only interested in having the most amount of friends possible to prove how popular he is.

Initially, I thought that he had lost the whole point of Twitter (which was ironic as he mocked Eddie Izzard for the same thing) but actually I think he has it right…….for him. Twitter is a tool and there is no right of wrong way to use it.

Chris Moyles uses Twitter to feed his ego, Stephen Fry uses it to update people on his latest project and to communicate with his followers and many others are using it to simply sell things.

Me – I use it to build a conversation with people in my industry that geography means I can’t meet or have time to speak too. I use it to tell people of the good work that my PR agency does, to send useful pieces of information that I find to my Twitter community and to shamelessly drive traffic to my blog. In the past I have blogged about how I choose to follow / un-follow people but again I find that this keeps evolving and changing week by week. My current philosophy is to follow anyone who follows me  as you never know where the next gem of an idea will come from.

The reality is that there is no right or wrong way to use the tool, just the way that works for you.

Tags: , , , , ,

I’m PR Friendly

22 Mar
Source: Brendancooper.com

Source: Brendancooper.com

A blog which has been on my blog roll for some time now is Brendan Cooper’s, where he covers all things about social media – drop by it if you get five, it is well worth a visit. Brendan is a social media specialist who understands that it doesn’t have to be complicated; it’s simply about enabling people to share things – opinions, news, lives.

On his blog he produces a list of the most influential PR blogs (please see Brendan’s site for information on how he prepares the list) and I was pleasantly surprised to see this blog pop up for the first time at number 86. I wasn’t alone in being a new entry to list as I was also joined by the following:
• Ron Torossian
• Teaching PR
• Final Spin  
• Sir Robert Bond Papers
• Becky McMichael
• Me
• Sixty Second View
Regardless of whether you believe in these lists of whether you think they serve any value apart of link baiting for the person who produced it there is no denying that it does provide a list to check how up-to-date your blog roll is. I wonder if now that I am on Brendan’s PR Friendly list whether I will be able to make it onto his blog roll?

Tags: , , , , ,

The Today Programme Viral Video

20 Mar

Radio Four’s The Today programme has launched a viral video which if you get a few spare minutes today is worth a watch. Enjoy.

Tags: , , ,

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,299 other followers