Archive for pr week

New guidelines on Twitter use for election

17 April 2010 , ,
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 [...]

PR professionals divided over Sarah Brown's prominent general election role

9 April 2010 , ,
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 [...]

AVE for social media? No thanks

29 March 2010 , ,
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 [...]

Google Buzz: what's the story?

19 February 2010 , ,
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 [...]

It would be really mean of me to suggest…

… 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 [...]

Newspapers: dead (wood) on arrival?

29 January 2010 ,
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 [...]

Social media press releases: good, bad or indifferent?

8 January 2010 ,
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 [...]

Google Sidewiki: it's probably not going to change the world

30 November 2009 , ,
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 [...]

Are MPs going to have problems using Twitter during the general election?

26 November 2009 , ,
There’s been a flurry of discussion, mainly on Twitter, following PR Week’s report highlighting the possible problem for MPs who have “MP” in their Twitter name. That’s because Parliament’s rules say you can’t call yourself an MP if you’re not one and all MPs stop being ones when Parliament is dissolved for a general election. [...]

Turn negative into positive: PR Week essay

13 November 2009 , ,
Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: Mandate Communication’s Mark Pack has an essay in PR Week ‘s Thought Leaders: Digital PR supplement: A few months ago I went to see the musical Jersey Boys. I went because a friend mentioned the show. We were passing a poster advertising the show, which reminded him of an advertising [...]