Over Christmas we had the opportunity to do something a bit different. Having helped the organisers of Guernsey’s festive ice rink secure the sponsorship they needed thanks to one of clients we agreed to provide some further PR support – in return for a few free tickets and a bit of free advertising.
This weekend I had a strange experience. One of the Channel Island’s most prolific tweeters stopped me at a mutual friend’s wedding to tell me I’d been too quiet on twitter of late and that he was worried something was afoot with me that he didn’t know about.
Naturally this led me to review a view things, firstly, had I gone a bit awol from my social networks? (answer, probably a little bit) And, secondly, has twitter become so second nature (particularly in the media industry) that a bit of radio silence can be construed with such great significance?
To address the first issue, without going into great detail, my twitter feed has been a little quiet of late. A reminder that I should practise what I preach and instead of spending all my time talking about other people’s social media activity I should look after my own a bit more, children of cobblers and all that…
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.
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…
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.
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.
We have recently had two new starters in the Orchard and both Harry and Chloe, our new account executives, are just starting out on their PR careers. We thought it would be good to catch up, one month in, and see what their first impressions were like of the industry, PR in the Channel Islands, and of course Orchard HQ!
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:
That’s it, we’re looking forward to hearing from you!
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…
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.
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.
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…