Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate

The story of the Bridgford to Bovey PWP 2012 charity bike ride is now on the BT official Olympics Storytellers website. Four months of preparation, four days of cycling, four blog posts.

Funds are moo-ving on up

Cow Appeal Poster

My bike ride needs mooving up a gear – please donate via https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/b2b

CIPR PR awards shortlisting

Text from press release issued August 29:

A Nottingham-based communications consultant has been shortlisted in the 2011 awards run by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

Jonathan Cross, who runs the public relations (PR) business People, Words and Pictures, is through to the finals of the Midlands regional awards for PR Freelancer of the Year.

This follows his success in 2010 when he was named the CIPR’s Midlands PR Freelancer of the Year and was a finalist in the national Xchangeteam PR Freelancer of the Year awards. Earlier this year, Jonathan was named in the top 100 creative freelancers in the UK by The Drum magazine.

The 2011 CIPR Midlands black tie awards take place at Birmingham’s Hilton Metropole Hotel on Friday 2 December.

Jonathan, of West Bridgford, is a former local and national newspaper journalist and in-house PR director who set up his freelance business in 2008. His clients include small to medium sized businesses, voluntary sector organisations and public sector organisations including the NHS. His services include copywriting, media relations, corporate communications, corporate publications, social media, marketing and strategic public relations.

One of only a handful of chartered PR practitioners in the country, Jonathan said: “It’s pleasing to be in with a chance of retaining my Midlands award and I’d like to thank all the private and public sector organisations which provided testimonials in support of my work this year.”

There were more than 1,000 entries to the regional CIPR awards this year. Commenting on the shortlist, Jane Wilson CIPR chief executive, said: “The CIPR PRide Awards celebrate the best PR and campaigns from the profession across the UK. To be shortlisted for an award demonstrates exemplary achievement, impact and value – immediately putting their work in the spotlight. Congratulations to everyone for reaching this stage.”

Client testimonial

Testimonial from recent NHS client received today:

“I have been amazed at what we have been able to achieve in such a short space of time with the professional and innovative support we received from PWP Communications. We now have a practical, step-by-step operational communications plan to help us prioritise and deliver projects. This has helped us to influence internal stakeholders and secure extra resource in order to deliver what are now regarded as key priorities in raising our profile and keeping our patients informed and engaged. We also now have branding and website strategies in place and a new image library to support these. The input from PWP has been invaluable in helping us plan communications for an emerging organisation and we have already achieved some ‘quick win’ successes within a matter of weeks. I will be using PWP for strategic and practical support again.”

For the best in Nottingham and national PR:  see www.pwpcomms.co.uk or email enquiries@pwpcomms.co.uk

It’s story time…

It’s about one year until the launch of the London 2012 Olympic Games and it was very pleasing to hear this week that I had been selected as one of BT’s Official Storytellers for the Games. While still learning about my role, which is set to include producing a series of blogs, tweets and photos during the build-up to next summer, it looks like I will be joining others from around the country in telling the story of the “world’s greatest games”. Great news indeed – it will be even better if I hear my application this week for volleyball tickets (from the selection of either football, volleyball or wrestling) is successful. There’s more information on this initiative from the official Olympics website and from BT. Looks like the Storytellers website launch will take place on July 14.

Further information from this writer on the Nottingham PR website www,pwpcomms.co.uk

10 recommended web and social media sites for communicators to check out

Want to engage in web communications and social media and not just through the usual suspects like Twitter and Facebook? Have a look at our top ten list of other sites worth taking a look at:

Quora – www.quora.com – social media based on question and answer sharing

Mailchimp – www.mailchimp.com – the best in (free) email marketing

Prezi – www.prezi.com – like PowerPoint but looks good

MorgueFile – www.morguefile.com – a stock picture library but with free images

Bitly – www.bitly.com – shorten those URLs that you send round

Plaxo – www.plaxo.com/ – online address book

TagCrowd – www.tagcrowd.com/ – visualise your words

Social Mention – www.socialmention.com/ – the Google Alerts of social media

Xtranormal – www.xtranormal.com/ – make movies by typing

Issuu – www.issuu.com/ – publish page-turning magazines and newsletters

If you’re on the web, why not connect with us and join in the conversation – you can discover more about People, Words & Pictures on Twitter, Linked In and this blog.

For the best in Nottingham and national PR, visit People, Words & Pictures.

Videos, virals and vampires

Many aspects of social media are fun and creative and help enable social conversations that support the brand presence. Corporate videos and viral videos such as Crashproof, made by the agency ST16, look great and can get over messages either explicitly or rather more covertly. But how do you measure the impact of videos in engaging audiences and changing behaviour? Ultimately you’re looking for a strong correlation between your campaign objectives and key performance indicators. ST16, at a CIPR Midlands evening event this week at the Hilton Hotel near Castle Donington, suggested a number of ways to build up your video evaluation. These include looking at ‘product sales’, web hits, online feedback, likes/dislikes, followers, ratings, the analytics available on YouTube, and industry awards won. The agency has won an IVCA and all credit to them. You can see another one of their engaging efforts with the Northamptonshire vampire dentists. Great work.

Report writing – 15 top tips (to avoid the ‘tracked changes’)

A good contact called me this week to ask for advice on report writing, having recently had their important report politely but savagely attacked by a well-meaning senior figure in the organisation. This can be a disappointing, humbling and time-consuming experience for any author in going through the amends and deletions in order to re-write the publication to a stage where it is approved or at the very least, tolerated. In producing any form of editorial for approval, we are always of course at the whim of the reader, their individual likes and dislikes, but aside from personal subjectivity, there are some constants which will contribute to a readable and well-received report.

In planning for the meeting with my contact, held at the traditional business venue of the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, I decided to produce a handy guide of top ten tips to help produce reports that are interesting, enjoyable and look professional. It turned into a list of 15 tips, reproduced here and I hope it is of some use to you. It hardly needs saying of course that a PWP speciality is the production of business reports, annual reports, newsletters, and editorial and photographic content for all sorts of corporate publications. Email pleaseimprovemyreport@pwpcomms.co.uk for more information.

Fifteen ways to get your reports read and accepted:

1)    Remember the reader. Who are you writing this for? Who are the intended audiences? What would you like them to do once they have read the report?

2)    You can be interesting and clever. Writing for a high-level/senior/academic audience does not necessarily mean you have to fill your report with dry, dull terminology. Shock them with something genuinely interesting that is clearly explained and understood.

3)    Clarity. Write so that an 11-year-old can read and understand it. If you have to use industry specific terminology, explain it. Try to avoid jargon or acronyms wherever possible.

4)    The killer stat. Grab people’s attention with an amazing statistic. Take the number and put it in another context. This is frequently used in comparisons such as ‘to fill Wembley Stadium, end to end x times around the world,’ or ‘a country the size of Wales’. When land mass is mentioned, it’s always compared to Wales. No-one knows why.

5)    A picture is worth a thousand words. Use photographs to brighten your report. Make them relevant and ensure they’re in focus. Use shots of people smiling, talking, looking engaged and positive.

6)    Fonts. Stick to the classic fonts (eg Arial, Calibri, Helvetica). Don’t choose a ‘whacky’ or ‘different’ font. It makes you look like someone who wants to be ‘whacky’ or ‘different’.

7)    Include an Executive Summary – make this interesting, direct and to the point. Most readers will look through the Exec Summary to get a feel for the report and then signpost their way through the publication using the Table of Contents.

8)    Break up the copy into short sections. Use headings and sub-headings to help the reader quickly understand the content.

9)    Edit it down as much as possible. Would you rather read a 10-page or a 100-page report?

10) Avoid complicated diagrams that only a subject specific expert could understand. If you haven’t got a clear and genuinely helpful diagram, summarise the findings in your copy instead.

11) Use first-hand quotes from people or ‘did you know’ facts in text boxes to break up the copy.

12) Consider inviting feedback from contributors or a readers panel prior to publication.

13) Always get the report proof-read by somebody else. They’ll pick up on some silly mistakes and may have ideas to improve it.

14) Look at the memory file size of the document. If it’s large (ie. over 2MB) pdf it via Adobe Acrobat as it will make it easier to email or download from a website.

15) Send people the report when you said you would.

PR freelancer – banging The Drum

“UK businesses are increasingly calling on freelancers to satisfy their creative and commercial needs, gaining tailor-made, expert skills for their business in the most convenient ways.

“Unwilling (or unable) to bear the cost of full-time employees for certain key skills – or just too busy to stretch their team any further – businesses increasingly call upon the self-employed to give them creative edge.”

That’s the view of The Drum magazine, a key trade journal for the marketing and creative industry. In their latest issue, they have named their top 100 creative industry freelancers in the country, and it is pleasing to be named among this list of illustrious peers.

The Drum adds: “The lure of the freelancer is plain to see: specialist skills as and when needed; businesses remain agile and versatile in an increasingly competitive world; opportunity to tap into and learn from expert knowledge.”

The magazine then comments on its top 100 list: “Our search for the most creative and the most reliable freelancers saw the industry asked for their nominations as to who are the best freelance creatives in the market. Hundreds of nominations were received and the most highly recommended were then invited to feature in this guide.

“Explore the supplement and the personal websites of all the freelancers to discover the high quality that is on offer across the UK… Each name contained in this feature has received endorsement from either agencies or clients that they have worked with.”

That’s probably enough banging the drum now for the freelance sector and this freelance in particular. If you were interested in exploring the website of PWP “to discover the high quality that is on offer” please visit www.pwpcomms.co.uk

What is public relations?

Loving the idea that a rather dull animated robot talking in too much detail about an academic critique of public relations could attract 800 views on the People, Words & Pictures YouTube channel. The video was produced following a long day being engrossed in anglo-American theoretical discussions of PR. What is public relations? Let the robot at the bar tell you more than you ever needed, or wanted, to know.