Mark Pack

PR Week has a report up today, including a comment from myself about the (lack of) role for user-generated content on political party websites. You can read the piece here.  »

PR Week has a story today, including this comment from me: Lib Dem-supporting Mandate Communications head of digital Mark Pack said: 'The debate and the post-debate polls have confirmed how the first TV debate has overturned the usual two-party political and media dynamics of UK election campaigns. For Nick Clegg and his party that's a dramatic [...] »

PR Week has a story this week about the new social media guidelines for civil servants during a general election: The Cabinet Office published General Election Guidance 2010 last week for government departments, which includes details about comms activities during the general election. For the first time, the guidance outlines that 'use of Twitter may continue for [...] »

PR Week has a story this week headlined "PR professionals divided over Sarah Brown's prominent general election role", including a comment from myself: Mandate Communications head of digital Mark Pack said it was a risky strategy. 'The reason they're doing it is it gets you extra press coverage, but at the same time the media tend to [...] »

The idea of using AVE (advertising value equivalent) calculations for measuring the benefits of social media gets a general thumbs down over on the PR Week website where there's a feature looking at this question. My comment on it was: Social media doesn't perform one task; it performs many - marketing, customer service, PR and more. You [...] »

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: For this week's PR Week podcast, I was interviewed about the launch of Google Buzz and its implications for privacy and for those working in PR: These issues also get a further airing in PR Week's story, Tech Giant Google Backtracks Over Concerns With Google Buzz Privacy Settings which says in part: Google Buzz [...] »

... but under the proposed criteria for letting bloggers have lobby passes, I wonder if several existing lobby pass holders should lose theirs: The general criteria we would agree with is that the person applying for the pass should be a proper journalist with a track record of journalism; that they should be operating for a [...] »

The future of newspapers is the topic of conversation today over on the PR Week blog. It includes a brief quote from me, so here's the director's version (i.e. the full length original comment): Paper is still a fantastic medium: cheap, light, flexible, versatile, environmentally friendly and never has a flat battery. People are still willing [...] »

Social media news releases are the topic of discussion over on the PR Week blog today. It's got a quote from me that was necessarily brief, so here also is the slightly longer version: The hype and hatred dished out since the creation of social media releases four years ago have both turned out to be [...] »

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: Since its launch earlier this year, Google's Sidewiki has resulted in some warning those in PR of the new ways it lets corporate reputation be damaged. Here is how PR Week reported the issue in October: PR professionals this week warned of fresh hurdles to managing corporate brand reputation following the launch of a [...] »