The rapid explosion of social media tools means that even the most widely used tools are commonly misunderstood. Take YouTube, for example. I was digging around the other day and found a series of videos posted by a public sector organisation I was researching. Great to see them using YouTube, I thought, but quite a…

A short post for today on digital press releases. ‘New media relations’ calls for better planning to help your press release shout louder than the rest. There’s nothing new in that but the more engaging the better. And it’s pretty easy, thanks to all the free tools at our disposal – YouTube, Sharepoint, Facebook, Twitter…

Interesting piece on BBC Breakfast this morning about organic food, triggered, it would seem by the launch of a new campaign by the Organic Trade Board. On the sofa was a spokesman from the OTB and, of course, a non-organic farmer, to balance the debate.  I settled in with my cuppa expecting to be persuaded…

So, what can social media do for your business?  This Friday Marcie and I are hosting a lunchtime discussion with about 20 businesses from around Cambridge to answer this question and explain how social media is changing the landscape of marketing and communications. While I’m enthusiastic about the viral power of social media, I also fully…

Picture the scene: a bunch of shoppers head for their local food store for a few last minute essentials on Christmas Eve.   As they approach the tills, the system crashes.  Nothing can be put through the tills so no one can pay for their shopping.   Far from going into meltdown, the shop manager told everyone…

PR spend took a hit like everything else in 2009 and 2010 is likely to present similar challenges but every cloud has a silver lining: tough trading conditions make us more focused.  Clients and agencies alike are nudged into ever more strategic thinking; joining up, piggy backing, cross-marketing – whatever you want to call it,…

OK, after an hour of frustration trying (in vain) to get quick answers to straight forward questions about a couple of insurance policies, I’ve had it up to here with call centres. My queries were not complicated but they didn’t fit any of the menu options.  All I needed was a bit of customer service. …

Welcome to our new blog where we will comment on issues and PR news or just put a question out into the ether to see what comes back.  As committed communicators of one kind or another, you’ll find, not surprisingly, that we tend to focus on  communications, PR and marketing – good, bad and ugly. …