WTF is Twitter and why should I care?

A really good presentation on Twitter for those who want to know more. That said, use Twitter carefully as a social marketing tool and make sure your target audience use it too before you embark on a campaign. Manage your reputation by keeping an eye on what is being said about your company on Twitter too..

WTF is Twitter and why should I care?

View more presentations from 3w pr .

Twitter is not for teens, Morgan Stanley told by 15-year-old expert

I love this story http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/13/twitter-teenage-media-habits. It's about Matthew Robson, a 15 year old boy, who while working for Morgan Stanley as a summer intern did a report on how teens use media.

Many people have questioned whether we should be listening to what a 15 year old says. But I actually think we should be listening to what 15 year olds are saying - they are after all a key audience for many marketeers and the drivers of future trends. (However, I do question the methodology used i.e. how many of his "friends" did he interview in order to make his research scientific)

The most controversial part of his research, which has got so many social media gurus knickers in a twist, is that he said that teenagers don't like, or use, twitter. Matthew says that most teenagers have signed up for the service but stopped using it when they realised no one really cared what they were tweeting! However, teenagers love facebook, and use it over four times per week, because it is highly engaging. Exactly how communications should be.

Read the actual report here http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/TEENAGERS1.pdf .

PR agencies in UK failing in online media

Great at doing PR. Just not very good at PRing themselves!

Bigmouthmedia’s 2009 online PR survey recently revealed that most of the UK’s leading PR firms have failed to get fully involved in online media.

According to Bigmouthmedia's latest survey of Britain’s 100 leading press and public relations agencies, the number of PR firms offering online PR and social media services has undergone a sharp rise over the last year, with 40% now providing a range of internet services. A 90% year-on-year increase.

However, 60% of agencies said they had yet to include online PR as part of their offerings. And only 45% of the group who claim to offer online media publish their own blogs despite widespread recognition of the value and importance of blogging as a media tool.

So in total, only 22% of UK PR consultancies currently use blogs to communicate with clients, colleagues and the wider marketplace. London agencies take the lead.

Although this is a UK story, I wonder if HK suffers from the same infliction.

The cardinal sin of blogging, and the opportunities lost

I've created the cardinal sin of blogging. I haven't been able to update my blog properly or put anything of great value on it for a while due to being super busy in a new job.

Not having regular updates on your blog can drive visitors away. It's important to build a valuable site for your audience, which they find engaging and useful. Continue to review your blog to make sure it still reflects your objectives. And keep it updated. Otherwise it is a lost opportunity.

A corporate blog is a great way to keep your customers up to date with your company, products and services in an informal and entertaining way. It can build a sense of community. You can engage customers through feedback and even earn money from advertisers if your blog is read by a highly targeted audience. You can easily measure its impact too (although I'm frustratingly unable to measure my blog at present).

Many PR agencies now offer blogging as a communications service. They can help you to come up with a strategy for blogging, assist you with the design and also write and edit your blog.

A blog can be a great internal communications tool too. A weekly blog by your CEO is a fantastic way to motivate employees. It shows the human side of the top man or woman and keeps employees abreast of what's happening in the company on a regular basis. The CEO can also use it to reaffirm the company's mission during tough times. It's also a great tool for reaching people around the world if your employees are stationed in many different countries. Continious communication with employees, such as blogging, is extremely important during these challenging times.

Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival launches first PR award

On June 22, the Cannes International Advertising Festival announced the winner of their brand new category for PR. This is another boost to the PR industry which is continually becoming more and more important worldwide.

Cumminsnitro in Brisbane, were the winners of the inaugural PR Grand Prix for Tourism Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the World’. In its first year the PR category received 431 entries from which the jury also chose to award 17 PR Lions from an initial shortlist of 37.

The International Advertising Festival - Cannes Lions - is the largest gathering of worldwide advertising professionals and advertisers as well as the most prestigious annual advertising awards. More than 10,000 registered delegates from 94 countries and around 12,000 total visitors from the advertising and allied industries attend this event to celebrate the best of creativity across all media mix, discuss industry issues and network with one another.

You can find out more about the winners and the awards at www.canneslions.com.

Things to measure

It is important to carefully evaluate your PR efforts to find out whether your campaign was a success. Items you should measure include:

1) The details of the newspaper/website/radio/tv including circulation and readership (usually 2.5 times the circulation), page views/followers for online or audience for radio and tv.
2) Size or length of article/clip
3) Whether the article/clip was positive or negative - measure the percentage if possible
4) Whether your key messages were featured in the article/clip
5) Whether your company was mentioned
6) Advertising value equivalent i.e. if you had paid for that space in the media how much would you have paid? A bit contentious BUT it adds a value to the campaign. This tends to work better for print, TV and radio and less so for online.

If you used a spokesperson or a celebrity in you PR campaign, it is important to measure how many times they were mentioned in the media. Measuring the celebrity mentions will help you to evaluate whether you should hire that celebrity again. If possible you should aim to do some market research first to find out the public's opinion on the celebrity before you invest in them..

All of these measurements will help you to evaluate the success of the campaign. They will also help you to set a benchmark for your next one.

I used to measure all of these factors, and this along with clear objectives and creative ideas, contributed to my campaigns winning awards from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

The beauty of branding, and Facebook

Hitwise reported that the majority of searches on Bing were brand-led.

Facebook was the number one search.