CIPR president blog launched
Posted Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 1:03pm in Blogging, PR General | 2 Comments
I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new blog by CIPR president, Tony Bradley. PR Voice has been in the pipeline for a couple of weeks now and today sees its official launch. The blog, which will focus mainly on CIPR issues, is a another channel the institute is using to communicate with, and receive feedback from, its members.
Tony says: “I hope this forum will enable those of you who are interested in what’s going on to find out more - and more importantly let me know what you think.
“I’m encouraging the Institute’s PR and marketing team to use this as another communications channel and will also be suggesting to the rest of my executive board that they use this blog as a way of reaching some of their stakeholders. Royal Charter, CPD, significant research into the PR industry and the move to St James’s Square has given us masses of things to tell our membership.
Personally I think it’s a great move by the CIPR and I know that Tony has been supporting the use of online communication for a while now. It will also give CIPR members the opportunity to air their thoughts on issues that matter to them. I know Tony personally - he’s a sound guy, a big advocate of PR students and has helped me out on more than one occasion. Welcome to the blogosphere.
Disclaimer: I work part-time for Tony at his consultancy in Newcastle. However, I would have said these things even if I didn’t because I knew him prior.
Technorati tags:
cipr, cipr+president, tony+bradley, stephen+davies
The government is monitoring the value of blogs
Posted Monday, May 22, 2006 at 5:15pm in Blogging | 12 Comments
I’ve just received an email from a gentleman named Barry Griffith who is a project manager at the Hansard Society. After a quick Google search I found the Hansard Society is “an independent educational charity which brings together MPs, peers, academics, journalists, parliamentary staff, civil servants, business and industry, trade unions, corporate affairs managers, interest and lobby groups and others with an interest in the political process from across the political spectrum to promote effective parliamentary democracy.”
The email was in relation to a comment I posted on the blog belonging to North East Labour MP, David Miliband, a couple of weeks ago. It says:
Hello,
As you will be aware, David Miliband MP’s blog is being evaluated as part of the ‘Digital Dialogues’ pilot. The ‘Digital Dialogues’ evaluations are being compiled by the independent, non-partisan Hansard Society.
You are being contacted because you have visited and posted on David Miliband’s blog. The purpose of this survey is to your ask your views on the Minister’s blog specifically, and also to pick up on your general thoughts about the contribution of technology to British politics.
Please complete the survey online at
http://www.digitaldialogues.org.uk/survey.
It’s a short questionnaire but asks a range of questions, including: Describe one thing you like about David Miliband’s blog, describe one aspect of the blog you would change to improve it, in your view is blogging making a positive or negative contribution to UK politics. It also asks a number of multiple choice questions and allows you to give a rating from one to five regarding Miliband’s blog compared to other political blogs.
The email doesn’t say the questionnaire is confidential which is why I have left it on this post. And after further inspection, the Digital Dialogues website tell us that it is a sub group of the Department for Constitutional Affairs which is responsible for developing eDemocracy capacity in local government. The DD are carrying out a number of case studies , including one on Miliband’s blog - hence the email and questionnaire.
So what does this mean for local government and government in general? Will we see an upsurge in blogging politicians? I wonder what Stuart’s opinion on it is? After all, he is one of the pioneering politicians in this space.
Update
Stuart has already posted his thoughts.
Technorati tags:
david+miliband, government, local+government, digital+dialogues, edemocracy
Some thoughts on the LG blogger relations campaign
Posted Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 12:59am in Blogging | 5 Comments
Today Niall Cook shared some very interesting feedback regarding the LG Chocolate phone blogger relations programme he’s been involved with. Niall makes a number of points so I thought I’d chime in with my tuppence worth.
Niall says: “The campaign (and supporting blog) is running well, and I thought it would be worth sharing some of our observations so far, for those thinking about stepping out into the realm of blogger relations (or - as is usually the case - not).
“1. The bloggers you identify as the most influential are not always the most likely to use their blogs to report their feedback.”
I had a feeling this might be the case. Some high profile bloggers like to ‘keep it real’ so any affiliation with the dark side might be seen as a no no. By the sounds of it, the influential bloggers Niall refers to actually gave feedback, but just not on their blogs. So, if these bloggers are mobile phone experts/fanatics, their thoughts are still good to know I guess.
“2. A brand cannot blog - only people can.”
Makes sense. Blogs are about conversations and I’ve never discussed the finer points of life with a brand. Besides, blogger relations is one of PR’s online tools it has been missing so long. Brands that blog are just…well…ick! **cough** Cillit Bang **cough** say no more.
“3. A video that one blogger included in his review of the phone was posted on YouTube, and has been viewed almost 22,000 times in a week.”
Very impressive. This is a great example of how other social media like YouTube can tie in with a blogger relations programme. Customer evangelism through connected media.
“4. The same guy’s review was posted to Digg, receiving 1,285 diggs and 113 comments.”
Again, very impressive. What tone were the comments though? Positive, negative or neutral? More on that later.
“5. A leading technology portal emailed asking us to mention their review on our blog.”
I wonder which one? I’m not sure how that benefits the campaign but it does the old ego no harm I suppose.
“6. We’re #6 on Google for lg chocolate review.”
Yeah they are, take a look. I dare say that position may rise too if they continue using specific keywords to improve the SEO.
7. “One blogger sent us 2,250 referrals”
That one blogger is BBC employee, Ben Metcalfe. Technorati rank of 3965 so quite influential.
Couple of things. I wonder if the blogger relations team are evaluating comments? Particularly on Digg as a scan shows not all are positive, like this one: “Has anyone actually handled this phone…. It feels cheap and plasticy [sic], and after handling for 2 seconds is covered in smears…. Looks awful, feels awful.”
In the interest of research I counted the number of positive, negative and neutral comments, and the results aren’t great: 18 positives, 28 negatives and 56 neutrals. I know, I know, that only adds up to 102 whereas it says there are 113 comments. But that’s all there are…honest. I must say, however, that the tone of the comments were deemed by me, so some people may beg to differ. Although, they were pretty obvious in my eyes.
I do think this is an important part to measure though. If PR is about influencing and persuasion then you should be measuring how influential or persuasive any PR activity is. Blogger relations is a great way to do this don’t you think?
Secondly, if this blogger relations programme is a success, it looks like Niall will be adding other LG phones to the programme. The domain url for the Chocolate phone (http://chocolate.lgbloggers.com/) is a subdomain of lgbloggers.com. Interesting.
Nice for him to share it and, on a personal level, I can guarantee next time I’m in a mobile phone store I’ll be sure to check it out.
Radio 1 moves in to Second Life
Posted Friday, May 12, 2006 at 7:56pm in Off topic, PR General, Technology | 7 Comments
This is bizarre. Get this. With an added twist to this weekend’s One Big Weekend event, The BBC has moved it into Second Life as well as in **real** life. The BBC website says: “The BBC has staked a claim to a virtual tropical island where it can stage online music festivals and throw exclusive celebrity parties.
“The rented island exists in online game Second Life and will hold its first event this weekend with bands including Muse, Razorlight and Gnarls Barkley. The virtual party will mirror BBC Radio 1’s real-world, One Big Weekend event, being held in Dundee from 12 May.”
Also, there will be a number of Radio 1 DJs circulating at the event and some undisclosed celebrities. The island will hold up to 400 Second Lifers so it’s pretty exclusive. So don’t think about trying to get in without permission, or you’ll be met with some “computerised bouncers” at the door. If your name’s not down, you’re not getting in.
Heh! Check out Chris Moyles above.
And probably the best PR tactic of the whole thing is, all Second Lifers who attend the virtual One Big Weekend will be issued with a “virtual digital radio that will allow them to listen to Radio 1 after the event”. Brilliant! But why can I not help feeling a little scared at the same time?
For a little taster of the event, here’s Razorlight with Golden Touch.
YouTube’s mobile uploading
Posted Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 9:37am in Technology | 1 Comment
You’ve probably heard the announcement that YouTube has introduced a new feature that allows users to upload video from their mobile phone direct to the YouTube website. To enable the feature you have to log into your YouTube account, create a mobile profile and away you go.
Apparently, it only supports US mobile networks including Cingular, Sprint, T-mobile and Verizon at the moment but hopefully should include non US networks in the coming months. However, I tried uploading a video direct from my SPV which is on the UK network, Orange, and it worked fine. So go figure.
So, it looks like another new development in the age of citizen media/participatory journalism. Or does it?
As an end user, I don’t find it particularly useful for two reasons. A. Why would I want to spend £££ on uploading a four minute video when I can easily connect it to my laptop and upload it for free (not including broadband subscription) and B. I’d rather post video to my own blog as opposed to on a video sharing website.
What YouTube should do is take a leaf out of Flickr’s book and create a way for users to upload video to the YouTube site but also embed the video in a post on their blog at the same time. (Flickr does this with photographs.)
Mob video blogging is the future, I’ve seen it (As Peter Kay would say). But not until the data speeds are quicker, the costs are lower and the technology is a little more advanced.
Sidenote: Bloglines (the best RSS reader in the world…ever) has introduced a new feature that allows Flash based content to appear in your feeds. In other words, you can watch YouTube videos embedded in a blog post without leaving Bloglines. Cool.