latest news from the orchard

September 13, 2011

Working with ‘the one and only’

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 2:25 pm

We took a call at Orchard Towers a couple of months ago about promoting a production of Joseph that was coming to Guernsey.  I thought it sounded an interesting project, and something a bit different to our core client portfolio, but I had no idea that by working on it I’d end up being a tour guide for Chesney Hawkes…

How it happened (aka. The brief):

Orchard was approached by Milton Morrissey Productions (after having helped out with last year’s  production of Buddy) and were given two months to get as many people as possible talking about their production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show was playing in Guernsey in September it was our job to get islanders to reach for their wallets and buy tickets to see it.

How we did it (aka. The experience):

We quickly set about formulating an action plan, contacting the local media and researching and compiling editorial opportunities.

The campaign was built around the fact that the West End cast was visiting the island for just a week and that the “One and Only”, Chesney Hawkes was taking the lead role, with “Loose Women” presenter Zoe Tyler also starring.

The project evolved and we worked hard to gain media interest and momentum in the lead up to the show  by writing press releases, delivering posters, tweeting from the @JosephGsy twitter account, organising competitions with GP Ted and arranging various interviews for the cast and crew.

For the final push Chesney  himself stepped in. A local children’s choir recruited to perform in the show and a break in the West End cast rehearsal schedule meant that before I knew what was happening, I was driving to the airport in my blue VW Polo to pick up none other than the pop sensation Chesney Hawkes.

What followed was an afternoon of media interviews and entertaining Chesney with my local anecdotes (he didn’t know that Guernsey was occupied during the Second World War nor that the speed limit was only 35 mph) and generally making introductions.

Chesney was everywhere in the local media for several days with features on Channel TV and BBC spotlight, interviews on the radio stations and several spreads in the Guernsey press. It created a huge buzz around the production and it seemed everyone was talking about Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – even Guernsey FC got involved and said they may adopt ‘The One and Only’ as their anthem!

In the end… (the outcome)

This project enabled us to show that if you engage the media in the right way, with the stories they want it is possible to generate high levels of interest. With tickets sales given a boost each time an article was published or an interview went on air, organisers Paul Morrissey and James Milton said they were pleased with the media and public response.

The project introduced a nice bit of diversity to the Orchard portfolio, and gave everyone a bit of a lift when Chesney visited Orchard HQ to say hello to the team. I even allowed a bit of my own creativity to get in on the act by drawing the Technicolor Dreamcoat for the GP Ted colouring competition, so I can honestly say this is one of the most feel-good clients I have worked on to date.  I even got a sneaky pic with my mate Ches and we are now friends on Twitter!

All in all, in the two months prior to production Orchard generated around 30 pieces of coverage, three pieces on TV and a smattering of radio interviews and news bulletins, in addition to a few review pieces post-production.

Posted by Adie.

April 14, 2011

February 18, 2011

Free PR today on twitter

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , — orchardnews @ 8:56 am

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!

 

February 15, 2011

Free PR advice (in 140 characters)

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , , , , — orchardnews @ 2:32 pm

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…

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.

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November 9, 2010

Twitter gets results

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , , — orchardnews @ 4:54 pm

There’s a difference between believing something works and knowing it works. I have been tweeting for only eight months and over that time it has worked for me, both in terms of information that I’ve picked up from my “followings” and business-related openings and opportunities that have arisen as a result of my tweets. But it was only last week that I experienced the true power and potential of Twitter.

From a PR point of view it demonstrated loud and clear that corporates are not taking social media for granted – they are really listening (sometimes)!

Last week I had a problem with Virgin Trains, whereby the counter staff at Euston were unable to issue me with a ticket I had booked online, causing me to miss my train and buy another ticket. In the past I would have had to take this up by letter or phone days after my business trip which would have been time-consuming and costly. But I tweeted @virgintrains about the situation and within minutes the company contacted me via Twitter and offered a remedy.

During the same trip I tweeted about my experience of check-in @premierinn from whom I had a reply thanking me for my feedback.

What a shame that @legolandwindsor didn’t do the same when I was one of thousands left aimless by a three-hour power failure there during half term week. I was tweeting throughout. Was there a response? Not a dickie bird!

Posted by Steve.

Pic grabbed from here.

November 4, 2010

PRCA National Conference

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , — orchardnews @ 7:08 pm

Steve has been at the PRCA National Conference today, fortunately for us, he’s been providing a running commentary on the nuggets of wisdom being dished out by the speakers.

Here’s his twitter stream for the day…

  • At @PRCA_UK conference bright and early for breakfast seminar
  • http://twitpic.com/33rqxz – The fabulous Bridgewater Hall, Manchester venue for @PRCA_UK conference today
  • Watch out @OrchardPR I’ll be bringing back Neil Backwith’s 9 point plan on things we forget
  • “Issuing statements is not a race in a crisis but social media is putting us under pressure” Donald Steel BBC
  • Crisis comms: Speed is the enemy of accuracy, but . . Donald Steel, BBC
  • Social media is an evolution not a revolution – Donald Steel, BBC comms chief
  • The pressure to be certain in today’s media is immense – Tom Kelly, Comms Director, FSA
  • Spin and hiding no longer work; we need humility and courage – Tom Kelly, FSA comms director
  • Demographics is dead – what matters is interests and behaviour – social media ideas lab
  • Social media will evolve through gaming sites, further domination by FB, being more integral across business and dedicated budgets
  • Manage your issues early and they won’t peak into a crisis – Andrew Griffin
  • Crisis management is much more than crisis comms – you cannot spin your way out of a crisis, Andrew Griffin
  • PR people need to understand SEO more, in order to advise clients – ideas lab
  • End of advertising hegemony – PR no longer an afterthought. “I pitched twice in a lift”, Martin Thomas
  • “Recession will be fantastic for PR – it’s forcing clients to really think about what they are doing” Martin Thomas
  • The PR industry bores for Britain on evaluation – Martin Thomas
  • Social media dramatises disconnection; you have one hr to respond to a negative blog and 6 mins to a negative tweet – Martin Thomas
  • Mark Hanson: Readers now challenge journos’ opinions and articles and get into convos with them
  • PR consultancies need to make more use of SEO experts – closing panellists agree
  • Sally Costerton: after 20 years of managing messages all this @twitter transparency is quite alarming

You can see more news from the conferences other delegates by checking out the hashtag #prcanc.

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.

October 30, 2009

Blogging and Tweeting

Filed under: PR — Tags: , , , — orchardnews @ 3:07 pm

Perhaps it’s coincidence, or just serendipitous timing, but the write up of our social media seminar is in the Guernsey Press today – reminding me that I was going to blog about it.

Obviously there is a fair bit of good content online already – if you want to know what we talked about – check out our twitter feed from the 8th / 9th October.

I’m a very keen internet citizen, so when the opportunity came up to put together a session for the CIPR group over here and in Jersey, I jumped at the chance. The brief – to bring someone over with the right expertise, who could talk to the two local groups about social media tools.

So I called an old friend, Andy Gibson.

Our session ranged over a lot of topics (full feed is after the jump), the most common example was twitter, something we use here at Orchard Towers to tell people about our company. One thing Andy said that stuck was that to succeed in promoting yourself online, you need to be remarkable – as in, you need to say (or do) things that people will remark on, will pass on to their friends with ‘hey – saw this and thought it was interesting’ to go with it.

Andy Gibson in Guernsey

In Jersey we, well, Matt at @wearewebreality, coined the term ‘downsourcing’. The basic premise of downsourcing is that you assign a task (in this case updating twitter) to the person with the most time, rather than with the most expertise (people with expertise tend to have more demands on their time!). I’m sure everyone sees the danger there.

Above all, I think we came to the conclusion that anyone can ‘do’ social media, provided they are social – friendly, responsive and polite for example. Even if you are a commercial, or corporate, entity, people will still engage with you if you take this idea to heart and have a conversation with them instead of pushing advertising at them 24/7. If it is clear there is a personality behind the brand, you’ll be surprised at how close you can get to your customers or clients.

More photos and links after the jump…

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