DWPub Sporadic

Raising the debate on PR pollution

The issue of journalists being bombarded by irrelevant material is not a new one, I remember 100 press releases a day landing on one newsdesk I worked on - and they were paper. That was a big pile of dead trees every day.

But the ease of distributing press material online is causing this issue to get more serious (Mark Borkowski asked if it could be 'the new chlamydia') and as a consequence there is evidience journalists are beginning to block certain senders. Which is no good for anybody, least of all a balanced media. That's why I'm supporting Realwire's 'An Inconvenient PR Truth' campaign. I'm aware the campaign could be percieved as a little patronising but I'm behind it because it is a genuine attempt to lift the debate from the occasional journalist gripe to a decent industry discussion on the matter.

What really grabbed my interest was the research behind the campaign. It found that although journalists believe about 75 per cent of stuff sent to them is irrelevant, the consensus among them was that 50 per cent irrelevance would be acceptable. If that is the case, PR professionals don't have to reinvent what they do, it's just a matter of being a bit more precise.

SourceThatJob takes a stand over exploitation

You might be familiar with our media job site, SourceThatJob, which has been running for some years and has a loyal following.

I guess it's not surprising given the state of the economy, but in the last year or so there has been an increase in the number of 'internships' being offered in the media, many of these advertised on SourceThatJob. These positions are almost always unpaid and often run for long periods - three to six months - and are sometimes open-ended.

We had some feedback about this trend from journalists, so I took a closer look at it.

There is a need for young, inexperienced journalists to gain work experience, but there is also a serious risk of what the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) warns against - 'bogus' work experience 'used by employers to get work done for free'. That's a simplification of a complex issue which is potentially damaging in a number of ways, check out the NUJ 'Work Experience?' campaign for full details.

SourceThatJob is run by media people and is part of our family of media services, including Response Source, FeaturesExec and SourceWire. I was concerned that the site should represent the best interests of its audience, primarily journalists and PR professionals. So we've decided that from now on we will only include paid positions on SourceThatJob.

The downside to this decision of course is that we won't be able to advertise real work experience opportunites (see here for the NUJ guidelines on work experience). That's a real shame.

This policy may cost us in terms of revenue, but I think it's the right thing to do until the media industry can find a way to deal with the risk of work experience exploitation.

SourceWire party at the Cheshire Cheese welcomed journalists in from the cold

The annual Xmas journalist party at the Cheshire Cheese, which I'm very proud has become our responsibility to organise, went ahead this week - and what a great afternoon it was.

There was a particularly good turnout this year - around 140 journalists throughout the afternoon and people generally came earlier and stayed longer. The traditional pie and veg went down well, with many people commenting on the quality of the food,

Inspired by escherman's Andrew Smith and his video of the Jackenhacks event, I picked up a FlipVideo camera to capture some people's thoughts of the event (there are also pictures on Flikr). You can't describe the results from this camera as 'broadcast standard', especially in low light in the basement of the Cheshire Cheese, but its simplicity makes the whole process of creating video content a lot easier. No journalists were harmed in the making of the movie, despite Adrian Mars' exclamation at the end. 

SMEs are smarter than you think

More than one in four small and medium businesses in the UK use social media to market themselves. That's one of the main findings of an SME marketing survey we have just completed.

I'm really encouraged by that figure. Over 280 SMEs took part in the survey and they came from over 80 different sectors, so it was a pretty good sample - from a wide variety of companies. Social media marketing is in its infancy, but to think that 27.5 per cent of small and medium companies are engaging in social media to build their businesses already shows that UK SMEs are pretty switched-on.

As I say in the press release, this survey shows that small and medium businesses are showing real imagination when it comes to choosing marketing techniques. Companies realise the importance of being visible online and are recognising the benefits of having an up-to-date digital presence. Many are embracing social media and combining this with more traditional marketing methods.

Another interesting fact that came out from the survey was that just over 17 per cent of small and medium businesses had bought-in external PR services. Now, on the face of it that doesn't sound a huge figure but in the context of small businesses - we're talking one to 250 employees here - nearly one in five is a significant minority. When you consider there are approximately one million active small businesses in the UK, that makes for plenty of potential work for PR agencies. But beware - budgets are small. Only eight per cent spend over £100,000 a year on marketing and 55 per cent spend less than £10,000. I suspect that the 17 per cent who buy-in PR are also the ones with the biggest overall marketing budgets.

Consider also that 43 per cent of respondents said they used press release distribution services, then that extrapolates to a lot of small and medium businesses doing PR for themselves. Good on 'em.

Our small and medium businesses are a smart bunch. Let's hope they continue to apply their imagination when it comes to marketing. The SME sector is an oft-forgotten powerhouse of the UK economy.

Check out my recent column on DM Weekly - 'Social media marketing: what big brands can learn from small businesses' (login required).

Leeds Metropolitan University PR degree students embrace online PR

My series of PR degree guest lectures continued with a return trip to Leeds Metropolitan University where the audience showed probably the best understanding of the changing world of media relations I've experienced so far.

That was probably partly a function of the fact that they were a combination of final year and post-grads which meant many had some work experience. A majority of these indicated that campaigns they'd worked on had a online PR element - albeit limited in many cases. It's also due to Leeds Met taking digital PR seriously on its PR degree course, which is to be congratulated.

As I have done before I tweeted live during the lecture, asking for tips for the students. The response was fantastic. But what was new this time was a few of the students actually tweeted back during the lecture - good to see. It prompted me to make the point that no self-respecting PR person should be without a mobile device that gives them decent internet access - like an iPhone or Blackberry.

Here's the advice the students saw on screen during the lecture (many thanks to all of you who replied). @10Yetis clearly knows what he is talking about, as does @James_Hatch (perhaps speaking from experience)! The reply from @stedavies was part of another conversation, by chance he was delivering a lecture at Newcastle University on the same day (students - check out his excellent blog at www.prblogger.com).The slides for my lecture can be found here.

 

Small business marketing - PR becoming more relevant

A welcome symptom of the growth of digital media and the evolution of social media is that for the typical small business public relations (PR) is becoming much more relevant and potentially rewarding.

It wasn't that long ago that for many small business owners or managers PR was deemed expensive and of limited value. Hiring a specialist PR consultant to get you one or two bits of coverage in a local paper or trade rag seemed a gamble at best.

I's a different world now. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) - from startups to growth companies - can now do a lot more themselves. And regardless of whether or not they get those column inches in their local paper or trade magazine the online content created as part of even a limited PR campaign can be of real and sustained value.

There are plenty of guides to DIY PR around - not least my own whitepaper on how to write press releases. A bit of knowledge combined with online tools such as online press release wires and more generic social media sites gives small business much greater and enduring potential impact than that provided by a few lunches with the local business correspondent.

Issueing releases on a regular basis alongside a decent social media presence (things like a corporate blog, Facebook page, LinkedIn group and maybe a Twitter feed all linking back to a half decent company website) may not exactly be a sophisticated online PR campaign but it is certainly within the grasp of most owner managers or marketing managers within small businesses.

Instead of a backwater, I think many imaginative entrepreneurs will make small business public relations a sector of real innovation.

The Jackenhacks - the fallout

Last's week's Jackenhacks event, a light-hearted networking evening for technology PR professionals, was yet another cheeky success.

Some may have made comments about the limited capacity at the venue (a symptom of the success of the event really) and the poor sound system (always tricky in venues normally geared for music only), but that misses the point a bit - it's a bit of informal fun and being rough around the edges is all part of it.

During the evening I discovered that some people had taken my last post rather literally. It was, of course, a spoof. I suspect everyone who read to the final paragraph would have realised as much. But as I know from my journalism days, people don't often read all the way to the end of a story! It was good for the blog though - most hits I've ever had in a day. Comedy can be very effective in social media - but you have to get the tone right.

On the subject of tone, you may or may not find the video below by Andrew Smith from escherman of a suitable tone for office or familiy viewing, but it shows what can be done with a very cheap pocket video camera and some quick editing. (By the way, I don't know who that Tim Hoang is talking to.)

Clarification on DWPub and the 'Jackenhacks'

It has come to my attention that the organisers of a dubious event have been using the Daryl Willcox Publishing name in some sort of attempt to gain credibility.

The 'Jackenhacks' event for the technology PR community, occuring this Wednesday in an insalubrious part of London, has been giving the impression that Daryl Willcox Publishing is an official sponsor.

I'd like to place it on record that Daryl Willcox Publishing has no connections whatsoever with the Jackenhacks and wouldn't for one minute consider tarnishing our brand by association with such a clearly tasteless event. I am considering our next steps with the assistance of a firm of well-known libel lawyers.

I've been here before, only last year we were hoodwinked into sponsoring something called the 'Flackenhacks' which seemed to have the gloss of a professionally run networking event but turned out to be a wilful abandon of booze and cheap jokes, not to mention the rubbish PA system.

Anyway, quite how the very respectable Mr Waddington and Mr Earl from Speed Communications got mixed up with this latest 'Jackenhacks' malarkey is beyond me, though they suggest their involvement was an attempt at protection - which of course backfired.

If you take the questionable decision to attend this shady event and by chance notice my presence then I just want to make it clear my attendance will be purely for research purposes and does not imply any kind of endorsement.

Do our branding survey - and win prizes!

I've put together a very quick - just three questions - survey about DWPub's branding, partly as an experiment in surveying our community and partly as a genuine examination of our brand recognition.
Anyway, having just mentioned it on my Twitter feed (@darylwillcox) we've already had quite a few people complete it and initial results are fascinating.
So, if you've not done so already, please take our branding survey before it closes on 25 September. If you give your email address at the end you'll be in for a chance to win a case of wine and I'm adding two runners-up prizes worth £19.99 each of the new revised edition of Online Public Relations by David Phillips and Philip Young, supplied by our sister site The Media Bookshop.
I'll share the results here after the survey closes, at least the stuff I think would be interesting to our community.

Journalists - changing behavior

I've been on the campaign trail about the importance of digital media and how the PR industry must adapt for a couple of years now.
Things have changed a lot in this time, many PR professionals are now placing greater empasis on online PR techniques and, more crucially, are educating their clients or chief executives on the value of digital coverage.
However, there are still many PR professionals out there who reatain an obsession with traditional media or believe that online PR is a box you can just tick by setting up a Facebook group.
Well, even if you ignore digital media, you can't ignore the demands of journalists, and there is a great deal of evidence that even journalists on traditional media are adopting social media to help them get their jobs done (check out this recent post from Econsultancy).
It's important to understand that what is going on in digital media - and social media in particular - is important for PR professionals on two levels. Not just with regard to identifying and influencing a wider range of digital media outlets, but also to communicate with journalists in general.