latest news from the orchard

April 19, 2012

Election candidates have worn their heart on a new media sleeve

Filed under: Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 9:04 am

Voters in Guernsey have been able to get much closer to candidates in the 2012 election. In addition to the traditional doorstep visits, hustings meetings, manifestos and media coverage, this election has seen some candidates making themselves more accessible through the use of various facets of online and social media.

Four years ago there were hardly even any websites but this election we’ve seen some really impressive sites, plus candidates communicating via Twitter and Facebook and some even making daily broadcasts using audioboo.

Capitalising on the media revolution of recent years has brought benefits to both candidates and voters. Candidates are no longer restricted to the amount of information they can squeeze into a four page manifesto. They can expand on this, and react to the issues raised during household visits, as their campaign unfolds in a variety of other ways.

Voters who want to do their homework can find out much more about their candidates and interact with them directly or through a number of online public forums.

One new tool that some candidates have chosen to use to express their views is audioboo. This is an application that allows users to post a personal broadcast via an Internet link that can be distributed through channels such as twitter, facebook or email.

Broadcaster Kevin Stewart was the first candidate to use audioboo and he was soon followed by a number of others. Some have used it to talk in depth about their views on a hot topic; others as a stream of consciousness. It is much more personal that a written statement as it captures tone of voice, personality and even humour.

The introduction of more “DIY media tools” meant that candidates could stretch their allowable election budget much further. In the old days candidates could just about afford photography, printing of manifestos and posters and postage. New media is much more cost-effective.

It will be interesting to see whether successful candidates who have made use of social media will continue to do so over the next four years.

Posted by Steve.

April 18, 2012

There’s more to Pinterest than cake…

Filed under: PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , , — orchardnews @ 8:10 am

Pinterest. You’ve heard of it by now, it’s the social network that helps you compile pin boards of your favourite images from anywhere on the web whilst retaining links back to the origin sites. Other users can follow you or your boards and ‘repin’ your pinned images. So far, so simple.

In America the site has become a sensation with the crafting community who use it to collect together DIY tutorials and picture inspirations. Great, but what if you’re not crafty? What if you the sporty type or you’re a business? Fear not, there are many more uses for Pinterest than looking at cakes (though admittedly, this is how I spend most of my time!)

The great thing about Pinterest is that you can use it to gather together information that you want to share and use the images to engage likeminded pinners. If you need any more convincing check out President Obama’s boards: where else can you find information about private sector job stats next to a picture of Obama’s face on a cake? Genius.

Of course, there have been some teething issues as with any new technology. The biggest problem has been for people who earn a living through people looking at their images, like bloggers and photographers. Whilst Pinterest retains a link to the original site these are not always followed and if the image was originally found whilst browsing on Tumblr, for example, the original link is lost. This has led to bloggers like Liberty London Girl protecting themselves by watermarking pictures on their sites.

So it’s not perfect but it has the potential to be a really useful network for businesses and individuals alike. Local hair salon (and Orchard client) The White Room uses it to share hair styling tutorials as well as inspiration, product advice and make-up tips. Crafty blogger Martine a.k.a iMake uses it to showcase her handmade items and lead pinners to the tutorials on the iMake website.

My boards? Well, they’re mostly pictures of cake, but I haven’t heard any complaints from team Orchard about this rather delicious source of inspiration!

Posted by Chloe.

April 16, 2012

Who do you trust?

Filed under: PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 3:55 pm

Do you trust me? Interesting question…

Aladdin asked Jasmine before she got on his magic carpet and Jack asked Rose in Titanic…before it sank.  It’s a weird concept;  hard to gain and easy to lose – what makes you trust someone over someone else?

What about trust in businesses, media, politicians?

Edelman publishes an annual Trust Barometer which measures trust in governments, companies and the media across 25 countries. This year its findings were interesting but not that surprising considering the recent economic issues and the Leveson inquiry into press standards.

As revealed by PRWeek, the barometer showed an increase in disillusionment with both businesses and the Government in the UK. Trust in governments fell to 43% globally making government officials the least credible spokespeople in the report.  Trust in business also fell with only 30% of UK respondents finding CEOs to be believable spokespeople for their organisation.

This presents PR people with a challenge; finding credible spokespeople stakeholders can warm to and trust is a key part of many communications strategies.

What the research did reveal is that members of the public are increasingly looking to ‘people like themselves’ for credible information. This doesn’t just mean friends and family as with the increase in use of social media, not surprisingly, trust in online peers is at a record high.

This shift in credibility away from government and business towards media and in particularly social media has been described by Edelman as a “dispersion of authority” and represents a major shift in how organisations are having to manage their public relations.

It is now more important than ever to seek third party endorsements and support, and to create ambassadors for your brand that live both inside and outside your organisation. Satisfied customers and happy clients recounting positive experiences, or employees telling their peers about the great things they do every day – these are the things that make a difference to public perceptions in a world influenced by social media.

Posted by Harriet.

March 5, 2012

Tune up your social media

Filed under: Social Media, Training — Tags: , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 9:42 am

Social media, if you believe the hype, is the most important thing you need to focus your business on right now. Just for a nice change, the hype may be justified. Social media can be hugely powerful if harnessed in the right way. Making use of the networks, tools and platforms it provides can be very useful to online PR campaigns and can help win you precious profile and attention within a busy marketplace.

Jumping straight in and getting on with it can seem tempting. None of the tools themselves are that tricky to use, and there are online tutorials aplenty to show you how to design a Facebook page or win new Twitter followers quickly. However the first few steps in social media is also where many people get turned off. If there are no quick wins or no obvious results the feeling is often that they don’t ‘get it’ or more often that it doesn’t ‘get them’ and profiles are allowed to drift into dereliction.

It’s important then to think more carefully about what you want to achieve and how you are going to go about it before getting going. Like any campaign social media activity needs to be researched, planned, implemented and evaluated, then constantly monitored and refined. That’s before you factor in making it engaging and interesting to your core audience.

Orchard works with our clients on strategies for social media, figuring out how it can be integrated into their PR plans. We also offer interactive training sessions for small groups or 4-5 people wanting more insights into how they could use social media more effectively and time to think about their own businesses, bounce ideas around an open forum and discuss how they could put those ideas into practice.

If you would like to attend one of our training sessions please contact chris@orchardpr.com for more details. Our next half-day session is set for afternoon of the 15th March and still has places available.

Posted by Chris.

December 30, 2011

Looking forward to 2012

Filed under: Events, Orchard, PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , — orchardnews @ 1:56 pm

Despite its unfortunate associations with the Mayan calendar, at Orchard we are really looking forward to 2012. It looks set to be another year of innovation in our fast moving sector, with on-line PR where most of the real progress will be made. The team at Orchard have made some predictions, resolutions and observations about what they think the next year will hold for us.

Steve: 2012 will be a year when marketing budgets face a further squeeze as corporate belts are tightened further; we’ll have to work even harder to demonstrate the value that good PR delivered by professional practitioners can add in difficult economic times.

Harry: I’m looking forward to studying towards my CIPR Diploma in 2012. I’ll be dusting off my PR books and getting in the swing of writing essays again!

Brooke: Next year I am looking forward to some more fab events launching some new brands (shhhh can’t tell you about them yet!) into Guernsey and Guernsey Festival is going to rock, I just know it is going to feature in my PR highlights for 2012.  Oh did I mention I am getting married… I think my wedding is going to be a pretty big personal PR event for me!!

Pieter: I am looking forward to gaining more experience with the team at Orchard, assisting them with a wide variety of tasks and projects and putting my media skills to good use whenever I can.

Chloe: I am desperate to get started on a PR qualification! I am currently about half way to getting a degree with the Open University which I am really enjoying. I’m really looking forward to taking on something industry specific though and building on the knowledge that I have acquired as an account executive.

Emma: I am looking forward to conducting more media and presentation skills training. I think 2012 will also be the year that our clients will really get to grips with how the media has changed. By their nature, professional services firms are not known for being early adopters but the wave of proof demonstrating how useful social media is can no longer be ignored. I am looking forward to helping them get the best out of these new communication channels.

So there you have it – 2012 will be about big events, the wedding of the year, developing new skills and showing clients that PR delivers value for money. We expect it’s going to be a busy year.

Posted by Chris.

November 25, 2011

Pitching a tent outside Disneyland: Everyone is using social media, so shouldn’t you be too?

Filed under: PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 5:04 pm

A smart move today by the IoD in Guernsey as they hosted a social media seminar for local businesses. A full house showed the interest locally in getting a better handle on the topic and there were good presentations from Katherine Salt, a social media consultant based in Jersey, and Nick Masters, head of digital for big four accountancy firm PWC. There was also an outing for the excellent Socialnomics video – jampacked full of great social media related stats.

Significantly however both speakers focused not on how amazing technology is, or how clever you can be with social media but rather on the people using social media. It’s part of their everyday lives, it’s useful and it’s fun. Businesses have to recognise that fact first of all before they can hope to devise a social media strategy that can bring them some benefits. The consensus (amongst the main speakers anyway) was that the key thing to recognise about social media is that it is a fundamental change in the way we communicate, not in the actual physical act of communication being online rather than in person, or through the media, but the way we act and react. Communication in a social media world is not a one way street – listening, as well as talking, is a vital skill.

Too many businesses spend too much time talking and broadcasting and not enough time listening to their customers, seeing what they are doing, seeing what they want and engaging with them on that level.

In terms of convincing Channel Island’s businesses that they should be making more concerted efforts in this area, the presence of Nick Masters will have persuaded a lot of people. To see a big four accountancy firm advocating the use of social in their business plan was great, and Nick had some very positive things to say about the benefits of a social approach to communication, both for the business and for their 150,000 employees.

My favourite comment of the day came from Nick who said having a static website with no social integration and no strategy for engaging communities was like pitching a tent outside Disneyland and expecting people to just come out and play with you. Social media is about jumping in and getting involved, communicating with your peers and listening to what they have to say. If you understand them better, understand their motivations and expectations better, you can provide a better service to them in the long run.

Posted by Chris.

February 23, 2011

Breakfast with the B48 Club

Filed under: PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 4:14 pm

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”.

B4-8 is a group of around 60 people from a wide variety of business sectors who meet together to listen to each other, share their expertise and experiences and, well, network.

Today’s talk looked at how far the media has moved from the traditional press and broadcast outlets that existed 15 years ago when I started Orchard.

It is more important than ever today to manage the external perception of an organisation because digital and social media have made everyone a potential journalist with access to an immediate medium. Also, clients and customers are more clued up and if businesses do not think and act in line with the thoughts and actions of their customers the latter will go elsewhere.

Corporate social responsibility must extend beyond charitable acts (as welcome and valid as they are) to an alignment of corporate conscience with that of the market.

And as for Princess Anne? I was managing the media surrounding her visit to Guernsey in June 2007 when she slipped and fell over in the centre of St Peter Port. The newspaper photographer missed it but the Channel Television footage was syndicated around the world over the subsequent 24 hours. If that happened today it would have been captured on a mobile phone and Tweeted or Facebooked around the globe in a matter of minutes.

It’s not an option to say: “We don’t do PR”. People are watching what you say and what you do – and they have the means to tell the world!

Posted by Steve.

January 31, 2011

The social web is changing marketing

Filed under: PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 12:37 pm

Most Channel Islands professional services and finance sector businesses understand what they hope to achieve through marketing. Their aims are, generally, to promote their business so more people know about them, to showcase skills and expertise, as well as products and services, and to engage in conversations with referrers and potential clients.

These businesses are now having to consider how to position their brands online and this article by Emma Anderson was written for Contact Magazine to show why online networks are becoming so important to businesses and why social media is a significant channel through which business objectives can be met.

The full article is reproduced after the jump with many thanks to Contact.

(more…)

June 24, 2010

Twitter in the Channel Islands reaches a tipping point

Filed under: PR, Social Media — Tags: , , , , — orchardnews @ 10:16 am

It may be a global phenomenon, but in some ways Twitter has been a bit slow in catching on here in the Channel Islands. It is now starting to gain something of a critical mass, with key personalities in the islands taking up the service as a way of building brands and personalities. News outlets and the media have engaged, and breaking news now makes it to Twitter at the same time as it hits news stands and the airwaves. I’m now able to keep track of most local news via a few feeds, something that would have been impossible even a couple of years ago.

News breaking first on twitter will be the next step, and we reached a milestone of sorts today as well known and popular BBC Radio Guernsey presenter Gary Burgess announced on twitter that he was leaving the station.

Gary tweeted early this morning:

Some news from me: I’m leaving BBC Guernsey – final show is Fri 9 July. I’m taking a year out to fulfil a series of ambitions and projects

So it’s a tipping point of sorts: when the nearest thing the island has to a media celebrity is using Twitter to tell the island his plans it shows that it is becoming a useful communications tool, and something that we in the PR industry need to make sure our clients are paying more attention to.

Pinch of salt though: Twitter has not replaced traditional sources of Guernsey news just yet. The folks here at Orchard heard Gary’s news in the Television House car park a little while ago!

Posted by Chris.

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