It ain't flashy, social media is way more complex than you think and bloggers are not the same as journalists...

If you're studying PR you may be interested in this - what a PR person thinks they should have studied at uni. I'm glad to say we cover almost all of what they suggest!!

http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/48061.aspx#

Mastercard masterclass in how not to handle journalists?

Great example in the media this week of PR gone too far and the backlash that social media can precipitate when journalists feel too 'handled' by overly demanding PR agencies.

House PR, in their enthusiasm to get the press engaged about Mastercard's sponsorship of the BRIT Awards, sent an email to journalists offering tickets in return for a few small favours…sparking a big backlash on Twitter, which has reached even the Today programme Radio 4 (listen from about 2hr50min for 4 min) (thanks to Tom's dad for spotting this).

Here's more of that email - how would you feel if you were a journalist??

as part of our Priceless Surprise we are putting on cars to take guests directly to the awards – we will be booking your car to take both yourself and Katy from the office at 4:30pm. Are you happy with these details?

In addition – in return for this ticket we would like to ask that you agree to the following…

Social media support from both publication and personal Twitter feed

Pre event – e.g. Really excited to be heading down to @BRITAwards tonight with @MasterCardUK #PricelessSurprises

Event night – live tweeting from the event including @MasterCardUK handle and #PricelessSurprises and to retweet @MasterCardUK tweets throughout the night where appropriate

Post event – tweet directing followers to @MasterCardUK BRITs YouTube videos

Pre-event coverage of MasterCard’s Priceless Surprise video edits with either Laura Mvula, Kylie Minogue and/or Pharrell Williams – to include full credit for MasterCardUK and #PriclessSurprises

All features to be pushed on publications social feeds – to include @MasterCardUK and #PricelessSurprises

MasterCard inclusion in post event write-up (print and online) including #PriclessSurprises hashtag and somethingforthefans.co.uk URL

Post event write up presence on publication homepage (where possible)

Inclusion of MasterCard branded event night images in post event piece

Post event - coverage support for MasterCard music activity in 2014 (Beyonce & JT)"

It's people, not perks, that matter

Great blog post here from Mashable about 8 ways to keep employees - and thankfully it echoes much of what we say in the lecture and tutorials about employee ownership, two-way comms and the 'we' stories.

Point 8 is perhaps the most interesting: there is no one recipe for a successful company culture. Apple are highly secretive, Google all about the perks, yet each are successful in their own unique way. So every company deserves a different approach, depending on who and what they are - see the lecture for more on that.

Smartwatch watch

This is just a short video about smartwatches that may help with your assignments - comparing brands and some predictions for the future, and you get to see this year's smartwatches in action. More interestingly as marketers, it will be interesting to see what apps develop over time for us to use to market other products - but for now we thought this might be useful for the PRiDA assignment.

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1222459/tech-report-brands-need-know-wearable-technology?dcmp=emc-conmarketingdailybulletin&bulletin=marketingdaily 

P.S. Sorry I can't embed this one, not on youtube!

Mind blowing...

First a quick welcome to the new PRiDA students for this year...welcome to the module and this blog, I hope it proves interesting, useful and inspiring.

And we hit the ground running with an excellent example of crisis management and 'activism' from this week's news. Asda and Tesco have both issued apologies and withdrawn similar 'Mental Patient' and 'Psycho Ward' Halloween costumes after a furore about the portrayal of people with mental health issues.

Failing to consider each and every aspect of their value chain in the context of modern (and much more open) attitudes to mental health, both supermarkets missed the PR timebomb that was ticking in their aisles.

While both supermarkets were quick to respond with abject apologies and sizeable donations to the mental health charity, Mind, this was an exercise in damage limitation as the 'unacceptable error' was broadcast on TV news, radio news, newspapers and, of course, the internet. A better PR approach would have been to spot the issue before the products even got to the shelves, emphasising how PR should be embedded at every level of an organisation.

Meanwhile Mind have made the most of the supermarkets' blunder: with credible, qualified speakers on news broadcasts across the UK, great quotes in news articles, and the support of well-known public figures affected by mental health issues themselves. Stan Collymore, Alistair Campbell and others tweeted and issued statements - and every communication serves to reduce the stigma of mental health a step further.

Even better, ordinary people who are affected by mental health issues took to twitter and published photos of them looking, well, ordinary, with hashtag 'my #mentalhealth outfit for the day'. 

Effectively 'newsjacking' Asda and Tesco's mistake, Mind have snowballed national outcry at such insensitivity to mental heath to promote their agenda and raise awareness of the continuing stigma and misperceptions of mental health. For little or no cost, the charity has 'earned' millions of pounds worth of column inches and the airwaves, and a significant chunk of the twittersphere, to help achieve their overall aim of destigmatising mental health. And that, my friends, is the beauty of PR.

Public Relations: the champion or slayer of democracy?

Has PR 'revived' democracy?

On PRiDA we talk a great deal about the role of social media in promoting democracy: stimulating public lobbying, raising awareness of issues and being the driving force behind much of the Arab Spring - eventually leading to some governments blocking Facebook and Twitter.

However this article by Kent (2013) (if you have UWE access) argues that PR practitioners fail to use these media to promote dialogue and democracy, and indeed their overuse of one-way comms could be stifling democracy. Kent claims that "connectivity to our "friends" on social media comes at the expense of isolation from our fellow human beings who live next door or down the hall".

Interestingly, Emily Bell on Radio 4 this week would argue the opposite.

I also argue that PR practioners even actively undermine democracy with private lobbying - using money and connections to have a quiet word in the ear of influential politicians... So obviously, social media are tools that could be used better by many mainstream practitioners, but charities and campaigning organisations may be much better at using social media for public lobbying and rebalancing the influence of the people with power and money - for instance campaigners such as Surfers Against Sewage using Facebook and this app.
So while social media may be great for the voice of the people, PR practioners could often be accused of doing the opposite, according to Kent.

Tip of the fatberg

This is the 'fatberg': a 15 tonne mass of fat, sewage, wet wipes and toilet paper that threatened to back up toilets, spill into streets and release the stench of raw sewage into the streets of London during the hottest August in 9 years. The story could have been framed as one of inadequate sewage systems, lack of upkeep, and stinky summer disaster, yet Thames Water turned this potential crisis into a summer sewage opportunity.

Instead of waiting for the press to report how they were struggling to deal with the fatberg, Thames Water turned the fat tide and proactively reported on how their employees were working around the clock, in horrific conditions, to blast the berg away. They named the key sewage workers who worked all hours to remove the blockage, giving a human face to this disgusting story. And, coming as it did in the 'silly season' of August when there is little 'real' news, they took the opportunity to highlight the issue of the indisposable waste that people thoughtlessly flush away, and so use the horrific footage and pictures to try and discourage people from doing the same in future. Great example of turning a crisis into an opportunity.