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February 2011

Having the support of a PR agency

Businesses are bound to go through stages of success as well as points where they are struggling with their reputation. These ups and downs can happen to all businesses and this is why it’s great to have the constant support and advice of a PR agency. When things are going right, it’s tempting to just sit back and enjoy the success, but a public relations agency will ensure that you stay on top of the game, make the most of your success and grow from it. When things are going badly, it can be tempting to just give up.

The perfect PR campaign for tourism

If a business or organisation is looking for a way in which to obtain media coverage, then the only way to do this is with the right PR campaign. And this is exactly what VisitCornwall and its Devon counterpart are embarking on at the moment. The two tourism services are joining together to launch a campaign which aims to promote the region to German visitors. This is a great decision in terms of public relations because the two services will be able to combine their money. They will also thrive from the fact that their two locations are very similar and are very close to one another.

Five years on and Twitter is still a valuable PR tool

Twitter has now been operating for five years. And it has proved to be an incredibly valuable PR tool as well as a source of entertainment for an estimated 190 million users across the world. But as well as being a potentially life changing PR tool, it can also be very dangerous, so care needs to be taken when using it. For example, furniture store Habitat has been under fire recently and have been accused of exploiting the situation in Iran to try and increase interest in their products.

Communication is key with PR campaigns

Some companies choose to employ a PR agency and simply leave them to it. They have the vague hope that the PR consultancy will know exactly how the company wants to be portrayed and will automatically sense the message they want to put out. But the truth is, there needs to be a huge amount of communication between a PR agency and a business or company employing its services. The worst moment for both parties is the meeting following the campaign, when there are no results to speak of but to avoid this moment, an agency must ask what the company wants from the campaign.

Another PR disaster for Cameron

It seems that Cameron hasn’t quite got the hang of how to improve his public image yet.

Best-practice PR writing tips for PR execs – dealing with lengthy phrases

How does  PR content need to come across? – concise, punchy, relevant and often short. We don’t always have the luxury of plenty of space to get our message across. So if we can cut out the extra verbage that sometimes litters our text, we can achieve all of this -- why use 25 words when 15 will do? If your heart sinks at the guidelines:  “optimum word length 400 to 600 words,”  don’t despair, you can still squeeze in all of your information.

Rihanna creates a media storm in suspected PR stunt

For someone so young, popstar Rihanna certainly knows how to get attention. She’s no stranger to controversy but her most recent PR stunt has just been exposed as just that. Rihanna has just released a song called S&M but she was recently informed by one of her fans on Twitter that Radio 1 had renamed the track Come On and had censored some of the words in the song. Rihanna replied to the fan insinuating that she was shocked and wasn’t aware that this had been done. She also said that she wasn’t happy about the changes made.

A risk to social network PR

Over the past few years, PR agency staff have become increasingly reliant on social media to get their client names and messages heard by the wider audience. But there is a chance that public relations professionals will have to reconsider their reliance on social media after William Hague revealed that Britain was under a cyber attack. According to reports, Hague told the Munich Security Conference in Germany that Britain was under attack.

Know when to make a change to your PR methods

When things aren’t going well from a PR perspective, then it’s a matter of urgency that you do something about it. Your image is incredibly important and it needs some serious protection. So if you’re struggling to manage your PR yourself, then it could be time to think about hiring a professional PR agency. It’s amazing what a difference you can make to your business just by giving your PR methods a bit of a shake up. And that’s something that David Cameron has cottoned onto with the appointment of Craig Oliver as director of communications.

Does celebrity endorsement for charities work?

For a long time, it has been a great tactic used by public relations agencies because it’s mutually beneficial to both parties. But now there are questions as to whether celebrity endorsements of charity campaigns are actually working. The idea is that if you get Take That or Cheryl Cole to advertise the fact that they love supporting a certain charity, then their fans are more likely to support that charity too.