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.

A blog about blogs and the top ten list

In browsing Twitter this week, I was increasingly struck by the number of ‘how to’ tweets promoting lists. It seems anyone who is anyone in the creative industries has a handy top three/five/ten ways to do something involving social media and e-marketing with links back to their respective online company offer. If only life in general was as simple… To get to the end of this working week or to enjoy a fun weekend, all I need do is tick off these five top tips and I am surely guaranteed a successful outcome. To have a great day you surely must (a) get up, (b) get dressed, (c) meet people, (d) do important stuff well, and (e) stop doing stuff, watch the news for a bit and fall asleep. Tomorrow, repeat steps ‘a’ through to ‘e’.

Not to be outdone and admittedly as someone who likes lists anyway, I have decided to join the social media top tips bandwagon and blog about blogs. Inspiration for this article has also come from a client of People, Words & Pictures with a website based on a WordPress platform which through its design places significant attention on news stories. The client was concerned that they might not be able to generate sufficient news stories of interest or frequency to do justice to the focus of the site upon their latest news. PWP were asked to provide suggestions for the kind of stories they could write to ensure a regular flow of copy throughout the year. We came up with 30 ideas. So influenced by this work, PWPComms is pleased to provide a list of news stories to consider in talking about your business, which makes this a blog about blogging, similar to people who tweet about using Twitter or who call you up to tell you how to use the phone (no, maybe that doesn’t happen).

So, if you’re stuck for inspiration, about stories to promote on your blog, your website latest news section, or via press releases, why not consider…

The PWP blog list of ten top stories, in no particular order

1.       Announce a new business service

2.       Announce a new official social media site for your business

3.       Carry out a Survey Monkey survey and comment on industry trends

4.       Record a video and build a corporate YouTube site

5.       Develop a corporate responsibility offer – discuss pro bono work with a local charity

6.       Preview your involvement at conferences/seminars

7.       Consider the key numbers – 5, 10, 20, 21 – and announce a landmark related to such an achievement, eg 20 new clients – or celebrate an anniversary of the business

8.       Offer a discount or special deal – such as the recent PWP web copy amnesty (where businesses could own up to the awful jargon on their sites in return for polished, sparkling and meaningful new words)

9.       Enter and promote your business awards wins

10.   Link your business news in to a special day – my birthday next week for example is International Women’s Day (!) and pancake day, and who knows possibly also International Women’s Pancake Day.

11.   Make what you do different. This for example is now a top 11 list. Radical.

People, Words & Pictures Ltd – for the best in Nottingham PR and national PR.

Traditional media, social media and modern PR

Following on from the last blog post, summarising key findings from the recent annual barometer survey by Edelman, it is interesting to note another key point – the increasing dominance of online media as opposed to traditional media in seeking information about corporate business. In answer to the question relating to where people go to source information on news about a company, the survey found:

• Five per cent use social media
• Seven per cent ask their friends and family
• 11% look at the company website
• 12% use TV or radio
• 15% read newspapers and magazines
• 19% use online news sources
• And the highest figure – 29% use online search engines to seek out the information.

The survey, by worldwide PR firm Edeleman, gauges attitudes about the state of trust in business, government, NGOs and media across 23 countries. It is clear that it is crucial to have your reputation working for you online and through traditional media, with corporate messages working across all media platforms. It reflects the need within the PR industry to move on from the out-dated approach of basing the success of a campaign on the weight of cuttings, to more sophisticated measures that correlate to how people behave and source news in the modern world.

Trust me, this is important

Trust is an increasingly precious commodity in these straightened times, where banks seek to rejuvenate their images at a time of bonus excess and politicians are keen to stress the Big Society rather than their big expenses. The latest annual barometer survey by Edelman, the world’s biggest independent PR company, shines a light on some interesting trends in trust, a cornerstone of corporate reputation. The survey gauges attitudes about the state of trust in business, government, NGOs and media across 23 countries and provides some interesting perspectives on the issue in our post-credit crunch world.

In terms of the trust of corporate spokespeople, the report states: “Trust in all credentialed spokespeople is higher this year, signaling a desire for authority and accountability —a likely result of the scepticism wrought by last year’s string of corporate crises.” No doubt people must have forgotten BP Tony Hayward’s gaffes including the memorable “There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.” The report places CEOs in the top tier of trustworthy spokespeople but still behind an ‘academic/expert’ or a ‘technical expert’. A ‘regular employee’ is trusted least which is a pity as I quite like hearing from those who actually know what it’s like working somewhere.

The idea that repetition of a key message enhances credibility still holds true with the majority of people wishing to hear a statement between three and five times before they would likely think it true. In terms of accessing those messages, online is increasingly taking over from traditional media, so take your campaigns onto new and social media platforms rather than relying on the paper-based press cuttings and certainly mix it up a little. Only 15% of those surveyed used newspapers and magazines as a first source of information (although a slightly higher 17% went on to read that information as a second source).

Interesting findings about the factors that contribute to a corporate reputation with quality, transparency and trust pre-eminent. High quality and products and  services (69%), transparent and honest business practice (65%) and company I can trust (65%) were the clear determining factors, whereas innovation (46%), leadership (39%) and financial returns (39%) were at the bottom of the list.

Within this context, the Edelman report comments: “Fifty-seven percent will believe negative information about a company they do not trust after hearing it just once or twice. When a company is trusted, however, only 25 percent will believe negative news about it after hearing the news once or twice.”

Trust is paramount in forging corporate reputations and as the old saying goes, takes a lifetime to build and 24 hours to demolish. Companies would do well to consider the levels of trust they engineer in their audiences, how they might further build up those levels of trust and build protection measures to protect that trust as much as possible.

• For the best Nottingham PR and national PR, visit www.pwpcomms.co.uk or email enquiries@pwpcomms.co.uk

Web copywriting amnesty – read all about it

This week a website copy amnesty was announced by People, Words & Pictures in part due to an abhorrence of tired and over-used business jargon appearing on so many websites.

We can all be guilty to a greater or lesser extent of falling into the trap of communicating to customers through the veneer of corporate terminology which should be terminated. In front of the PWP firing squad are descriptions such as ‘customer-focused’, ‘solutions provider’, ‘synergy anything’, and the truly awful ‘out of the box thinking’.

To find the worst web offenders, a quick Google search using the above words found:

• SDL describing that they are “… focused on providing innovative technology solutions which address customer needs”
• Deloitte talking about “a differentiated value proposition and an enhanced customer experience”
• Microsoft presenting their “Synergy Business Solutions products”, and
• Bundletech claiming they are the “leading provider of customer focused supply chain management solutions”.

In a world where content should be king, simple words which talk to audiences in a language they’ll like and understand, are often ignored in favour of the new young pretender phrase, wrapped in the Emperor’s new clothing and delivered in bombastic board room tones.

In this world of corporate-speak a ‘customer-focused provider of un-automated in and out of the box solutions for mealtime synergy’ is a bakers. In the real world they sell fresh hand-made sandwiches and cakes.

For clear and concise communications on the web, contact PWP. We’ll write the words that best explain and promote your business, we can SEO the text too while retaining readability of the copy.

So if your website does not do justice to your business, if the words are old and need renewing, if you cannot find the right words to get over your ideas, then please get in touch. During the web amnesty we won’t ask you to confess who came up with your current web text, why it’s spelt wrong and what on earth they were thinking about at the time.

• For the best Nottingham PR and national PR, visit www.pwpcomms.co.uk or email enquiries@pwpcomms.co.uk

Websites for presentations, social media influence and forums

Three websites and social media tools have been recommended to People, Words & Pictures this week. Through working with the Open University and developing one of their pitch presentations, we were alerted to Prezi, the upstart young rival to PowerPoint. While with Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, they highlighted their staff engagement through a new group called the Growing Together Network, an organisational development network that meets half-monthly and communicates online via an online communications forum, Lefora. Finally, we saw Number 8 Marketing using the Klout tool to measure their social influence, so PWP did too. It was a score draw.

For engaging presentations, PowerPoint is dead, long live Prezi: http://prezi.com/

Create a free online communications forum and embed into your own website: www.lefora.com/

Find out your social media influence standing: http://klout.com/

For the best Nottingham and national PR, visit www.pwpcomms.co.uk or email enquiries@pwpcomms.co.uk

PR evaluation

Debate has raged within public relations for many years as to effective and representative evaluation of the work of the industry. With media evaluation, many clients have requested reporting in terms of advertising value equivalents (AVEs) which might reflect quantity but certainly not quality and it is the quality aspect of organisational relationships that tends to be the more important. AVEs provide a metric but often these are flawed numbers, obscuring real meaning and insight. PR needs measurements that work and include the range of approaches that PR practitioners are involved in, from employee engagement to social media communications.  This summer the second European Summit on Measurement was held in Barcelona to address this topic and set the first global standard. Various reports have subsequently noted the death of AVEs but provided little detail on the new metrics. Shown below are the seven Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles which could herald a new era for PR measurement. As principles, they are fine, however the interest will be in how these are developed and put into practice.

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental to PR programmes

2. Measuring the effect on outcomes is preferred to measuring outputs

3. The effect on business results can and should be measured where possible

4. Media measurement requires quality and quantity

5. AVEs are not the value of public relations

6. Social media can and should be measured

7. Transparency and replication are paramount to sound measurement.

For the best Nottingham and national PR, visit www.pwpcomms.co.uk or email enquiries@pwpcomms.co.uk

Twitter tips

A few useful Twitter apps to recommend this week. TweetDeck is an old favourite – www.tweetdeck.com – which brings together the key social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked In into one useful control panel. Also worth a periodic visit is http://oneforty.com/item/friend-or-follow which can help you clean out the clutter of your Twitter account. Bringing in an elementary level of statistical analysis, Tweetstats – http://oneforty.com/item/tweetstats – quickly identifies areas such as  your key tweeting times, platforms, replies and aggregate tweets. It turns out that PWPComms’ key tweeting days are Thursday and Friday with most prolific tweeting taking place at 4pm.

For the best Nottingham and national PR, visit www.pwpcomms.co.uk or email enquiries@pwpcomms.co.uk

New PWP website design preview – feedback please

PWP new website design home page

The PWP website – www.pwpcomms.co.uk – that helped launch the business back in July 2008 is due for renewal. The company has moved on and our online presence needs to reflect this. Our planned new site, being developed with partners Touch Design and Volute,will combine a fresh new look with a far higher degree of interactivity. It will provide a showcase for our client work to date, more information on the range of PWP services including social marketing and social media, and will create the space to develop online conversations. The template new home page is shown above. Anyone with any views, whether the verdict is based on the good, the bad or the ugly, please let us know. All feedback gratefully received. Thank you.

People, Words & Pictures Ltd – Nottingham based public relations (PR) specialists