Delivering the New PR - Part 1 report

Roughly twelve hours of sleep later, I can post my thoughts on the Delivering the New PR Conference. Big post today, stick with it as much as you like.

This was my first marketing and pr conference and it was great to meet up with many bloggers, podcasts and other social media evangelists who I have been following for some time (I hide behind hedges). Speakers at the conference included Philip Young, Neville Hobson, Tom Murphy, Stuart Bruce and Chris Rushton.

Beginners Blogging session- presented by Neville Hobson and Stuart Bruce

The day opened with a presentation by Neville and Stuart with a ‘how to create a blog’. The idea of this presentation was to provide the audience with a context for the rest of the day, and teach delegates how to create a blog. Anyone that already has their own blog obviously wouldn’t learn much, and I felt that they needed at least an hour to properly explain how to start a blog, and plenty more time for items such as Widgets, trackbacks, memes, technorati etc…

What is the New PR? – Overview & Perspectives

Philip Young gave a fairly detailed presentation which defined what the New PR was and why all PR practioners should be aware of it. In short we live in radically changing environments where, as depicted in the Cluetrain Manifesto (and book all practioners and marketers should read), markets are conversations. The new PR is therefore about participating and joining in these conversations, which is the only way we can influence them. Companies must now create dialogues and networks both internally and, obviously, externally.

The New PR is also defined by an inability to control communications and the challenge we face include both integrating these new social media channels into existing and future strategies whilst also creating quality content which provides value to our target audiences.

Philip concluded by saying that we need to be strategic and think about who we want to talk to, why we want to talk to them and what we would like to say. We need to do this in a creative and exciting which is engaging to these audiences. There is also plenty of responsibility about creating this content (as we know from Lonelygirl, Wal-Marting across America etc).

The only negative point of Philip’s presentation (I thought it was a great presentation to begin the day for most delegates) was the technical problems with the internet. AS such the examples didn’t come off nearly as well.

The New PR in content – Tom Murphy

Tom gave my favourite presentation of the day. Not only by what he said but also for his natural ability of presenting ideas to audiences. What I loved about Tom’s presentation was his scepticism about some aspects of ‘new pr’ even the very term of ‘new pr’.

Tom provided a great context with the ‘new pr’ set against both the evolution of technology from the 90s with special attention paid to the comparisons with the burst of the dotcom bubble. The point I most loved about Tom’s presentation was his comment that we still haven’t fully developed our abilities with traditional PR, and we need to get this right before we move on to new PR. This is to say, that if we are going to include blogger relations within future PR strategies, we need to be able to approach traditional PR professionals first.

The number of badly written and poorly targeted news releases and pitches is a reflection of the inability of PR professionals to properly use databases such as Mediadisk or PR Planner. A badly written/targeted news release to a journalist will be deleted, a badly written release to a blogger might well end up circling the blogosphere as an example of a bad pr practitioner.

Yet, it is important we don’t ignore bloggers within strategies. As proven by Googlemail (gmail), where from pitching to seven journalists they received widespread coverage, reaching up to the New York Times, a brilliant blogger relations strategy can yield fantastic results. So be smart and creative when working with bloggers. On the whole Europe is behind the USA, with UK ahead of our continental neighbours.

Tom also explained the need to understand our audience better. He explained that many people receive a variety of inputs from many different communications platforms and we need to be aware of this. We have developed a natural filter to most of the information we receive. It is therefore imperative to look at how we receive information and how we can participating in the conversation where this is taking place.

PR practioners also need a far better understanding of search engines (I’m lucky as I recently wrote a big piece on SEO for the business press). Most PR practioners don’t include SEO as a service they offer when they really should. A high percentage (I can’t remember what) of online purchases begin with a search. In fact, search is one of the prime uses of the internet.

To add my own input here, the more competitive the keywords a client uses for their website, the more they need an online PR strategy to optimise these key words. This might be a great route for many PR companies to begin getting involved. Reaching out to bloggers and co with these key words.

Podcasting in Business – Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson was next up to give a presentation on podcasting in business. He aptly went through the basics explaining what a podcast is and its benefits. Benefits including an appropriate channel to market and the ability to reach audiences which might otherwise be unreachable. Podcasting can create a buzz which can snowball into a huge viral effect. Podcasters are often seen as an example of a market leader.

What I loved most about this presentation, we the use of one of our clients as an example. The Wiggly Wigglers podcast, a podcast we have been hired to promote (and blog), was given as an example of how even the smallest and most rural of businesses can use podcasting to great effect.

Neville also explained the benefits of podcasting as a means of internal PR.. Internal podcasts would be easy, inexpensive, portable and available. Such podcasts could be a roundup of what’s going on work-wise for the week, or could expand to include company events.

The important thing to remember when podcasting is to always be relevant, and focused. Remember that your catering for a niche which isn’t satisfied by other media – if you try to broaden your niche too much you will be battling against traditional media outlets. So don’t veer too far away from the focus of the subject matter. Podcasts should always be ‘infotainment’, a means of providing information of value to listeners as well as entertaining them. It’s a fine line, and one with great benefits of navigating it successfully. A good way of engaging listeners is to include their comments within your own podcast, e.g. FIR spends about 1/3rd of its time playing and responding to comments made by its audience. This creates a great community around the podcast.

Finally, be authentic, don’t advertise or try to sell. Try to position yourself as a listener and think about what you would WANT to listen to, rather than what the company would like to say. So if your podcast is one long advertisement for the cheap flights you offer, new products soon to be released or staff changes, the intended audience would be engaged.

The only comment I would like to add to Neville’s presentation was that there is a wide scope for podcasting outside of the current radio show format. Think how successful cooking podcasts could be if a celebrity chef began doing it, or what about directions to get to famous attractions. The scope is only limited by the imagination. Practical podcasts especially could be a good winner. Podcasts on how to solve common problems experienced by people everyday is a real winner. Car engine break down? Flat tyre? Well simply play the podcast which explains how to fix it.

Great presentation, by a strikingly tall man.

Next post – Blogs in Business, How to get newsrooms to notice PR, Second Life, closing panel and a conclusion.

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