I love networking and I was impressed by what I found at Guernsey’s B4-8 Club today where my short presentation might well have been entitled: “PR, CSR, Social Media and The Princess Anne principle”.
Free PR today on twitter
Today is our #freepr giveaway on twitter. We’ll be answering your questions on PR all day – sticking to the 140 character limit of a tweet. Just send us a message @orchardpr.
Of course – we do need some ground rules before we start, so here they are:
- No swearing please!
- Please stick to one tweet per query – and while you can ask as many questions as you like throughout the day, we may not answer them all in order to give everyone a chance to have their question answered.
- Be patient, we are still doing our day jobs so you may not get an answer within seconds…
- We’ll stick to 140 characters, but please don’t hold it against us if we occasionally sneak over into a second tweet.
- You may find that we use your tweets in a future blog post or a media release – please bear this in mind when tweeting.
- Don’t forget to add the hashtag #freepr to your tweets.
- We’ll do our very best to answer every question, but if we get too many we may not be able to get through them all today and will answer them here on this blog instead.
That’s it, we’re looking forward to hearing from you!
Free PR advice (in 140 characters)
This Friday we will be running an experiment of sorts: can we give out free PR advice on twitter?
The concept is relatively simple – send a question to @orchardpr, and we’ll reply with hints, tips and advice on anything related to public relations strategy, dealing with media encounters or how to get the best out of social media.
Questions (and answers) will be limited to one tweet and we will try our hardest to answer every question we get throughout the day.
Our twitter-pr-adviceathon will run between 9am and 5pm, this Friday (that’s the 18th February).
We’ll post more information (and probably some ground rules) here on Friday morning – so you have until then to come up with your questions for the Orchard PR team!
Who knows, if it goes well, maybe we’ll do it every week…
New for 2011: Orchard is offering more training
This year we are expanding our training offering to the Channel Island’s business community. Alongside our successful bespoke media training which, over the years, has seen many of the most senior people in CI business being put through their paces by Emma Anderson, we are promoting our presentation skills training and have launched a new course on introducing businesses to social media.
All three courses are designed for small groups of between four and six people, either from the same company or in a mixed group. We believe in learning by doing so, while there is some theory and knowledge to be gained, our courses mainly focus on delegates putting into practise what they have learned through mock interviews, presentations and activities.
For more details of our training options please visit the Orchard website or download one of the course flyers below.
Introduction to Social Media 2011
Planning and preparation are at the heart of good public sector comms
The public sector by its very nature relies heavily on communications. Governments need to reach people, inform them and help them make vital decisions and access vital resources. Without strong clear communication local government in particular would become insular, self absorbed and completely lose touch with the people they are mandated to serve.
Today’s editorial in the Guernsey Press highlights a PR ‘blunder’ by Guernsey’s States – news that the head of tourism is leaving the island needed to be handled carefully to ensure that negative connotations (that you can’t market a place if you don’t live there) would be balanced by positives (continuity, the fact that in 2011’s knowledge based, networked economy your location has little to do with your ability to do a job).
The Press’s opinion piece today suggests that this transition has been handled badly, and left the public questioning the wisdom of the move.
What could have been done to better prepare the media for such a story?
Orchard director is new CIPR Channel Islands chairman
News of an exciting development in the Orchard: Steve Falla, our founder and managing director, is the new chairman of the pan-island group of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Steve is a fellow of the CIPR, and was elected at the group’s third annual general meeting after inaugural chair Jason MacKenzie stepped down.
