Category: General

Mon, 24 Mar 2003 16:34:01 GMT

The new second generation independents…..   

The merger mania that saw many of the top independent PR firms snapped up at the end of the last decade is reaching it’s natural conclusion.  Many of the original entrepreneurs are once again seeking to return to their roots.

The latest is Andy Cunningham, a veteran of the technology PR business, who is spinning the Citigate Cunningham CXO practice out as an independent entity from Citigate Cunningham, although Incepta [FLASH warning] who bought Cunningham in 2000, will retain a 25% holding in the newly independent firm.

CXO offers “strategic communications programs” and was launched in November 2002.  Cunningham communications itself was launched in 1985.

As an aside.  The Citigate Cunningham website has no mention of this news, in fact, the front page has an announcement on the foundation of Cunningham CXO from last November….

Mon, 24 Mar 2003 15:59:07 GMT

How RSS can work for Public Relations….. 

Phil Gomes has written a whitepaper (PDF) on “Using RSS in Corporate Communications”.  It’s definetely worth a read for any PR person interested in learning how RSS can help you get your message out.

We’re very flattered that he’s included Cape Clear‘s RSS feeds as an example!

Phil’s PR firm, the G2B Group has also published it’s latest newsletter.

Update: CNET has a story looking at how publishers are looking to use RSS to reach out to readers.

Mon, 24 Mar 2003 14:53:39 GMT

Newsletter tips…. 

Whilst I was travelling around last week, a number of key design issues for e-mail newsletters became very apparent.  Here are some thoughts:

1) HTML only newsletters are useless to remote readers if the content requires a live Internet connection.  I read a lot of e-mail off-line when travelling.  If I pull up an e-mail and it consists of empty boxes, I delete it.  Remember to include the content as plain text

2) Most people on the road still only have regular access to 56K Internet, and that’s best case.  Large, graphic intensive e-mails take forever to download and don’t make a good impression.

3) Finally and I’ve written this before.  Provide links to an online version of the content.  A story is more liekly to be viral if I can forward a link rather than the entire e-mail.

4) If you go to the trouble of putting a newsletter together, why not include a “call-to-action” such as an offer to download a more detailed whitepaper?

5) Remember to include contact details….

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 14:31:55 GMT

Thanks for the feedback…. 

I’ve had a lot of correspondence over the past week from many of you.  Most of it has been complimentary, some of it hasn’t!

But I would like to thank you *all* for taking the time to get in contact.  Whether the feedback is positive of negative it’s much appreciated!

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 13:47:54 GMT

Interesting refferals….  

From time to time I check how you are coming to PR Opinions and sometimes the findings can be most interesting.  By far the single most popular search term that refers to this blog is “Shepardson Stern + Kaminsky”.

That story about the leaked internal memo, which originally came from the Holmes Report continues to run and run. It is an interesting case study in how information propogates online.  Although you might get an immediate online traffic spike for news, more controversial or interesting issues seem to have a life of their own through word of mouth.

In the case of the agency above, given the queries are mostly from Google, I am assuming that people were chatting at the water cooler and then going and finding out more.

So although the Internet is immediate and speed is a characteristic, the fact that it is the world’s largest archive means that any story can have a longer shelf life than at first expected.  In this case it’s bad news for SS+K.

Of course by mentioning the story again I am shamlessly promoting PR Opinions, let’s just say it’s an experiment 🙂

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 20:16:34 GMT

Online PR getting better all the time…..  

According to a story in Journalism.co.uk, the media are finding that PR websites are better serving their needs than they were two years ago.

The research, from Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen, reports that journalists now get answers for 73% of their needs as opposed to 68% two years ago.

Furthermore, 82% of news rooms now provide contacts details compared with 55% in 2001.

A summary of Nielsen’s 2001 and 2003 studies are available online.  

Mon, 17 Mar 2003 19:02:47 GMT

What PR and a good breakfast have in common….. 

According to the authors of a new book on Public Relations (Full Frontal PR), doing PR well is as easy as finding a good bagel in Los Angeles. (Now, does that mean it’s easy or difficult? 🙂

The book has been written by Richard Laermer and Michael Prichinello of RLM PR and has been generally well received (I haven’t had a chance to read it).

If you want to find out more about Laermer’s PR philosophy check out an interview he did with eMarketer.

There’s a great quote from the interview which I agree with wholeheartedly:

“The last part is having passion about what you do. If you’re an entrepreneur, they are passionate because it’s their lives. I went into another meeting where I spoke, and this woman raised her hand and said, “We’re salespeople. Can’t we fake passion?” My response was, “No. You can fake interest, but you can’t fake passion.”

Passion is addictive and contagious, unfortunately you can’t bottle it. I think we’ve all been in meetings with the economics teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Awful.