List of UK PR student bloggers

Posted Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 10:12pm in Blogging, PR General | 16 Comments

So there are some PR students blogging after all! In an earlier ~~rant~~ blog post, which I guess was more of a call to action, I enquired about the apparent lack of blogging among UK PR students. Well, I’ve since found that the UK PR blogging student scene is alive and well. You can see in the post comments I had a number of responses which in all honesty was what I was hoping for. Also, after doing a little investigation work myself… Okay, I tell a lie. After reading a recent blog post by Richard Bailey I found a number of others too. Groovy.

Without sounding like a condescending prat, I think it’s important to show a bit of encouragement. After all, if this social media thing is so important to the industry then surely the need to support and encourage the younger ranks is paramount? If someone with limited PR experience has the cajones to set up a blog and give their opinion on the subject then a bit of link love is in order in my humble opinion.

Notes to employers: Read em, like em, hire em, fire em.
(I’m just kidding about the ‘fire em’ bit)

UK PR STUDENT BLOGGERS

Matthew Watson - A final year public relations and media student at the University of Huddersfield.

Elif Esiyok - A masters degree student at Leeds Met.

Olga Kamshitskaya - A masters degree student at Leeds Met.

Nina - Not sure what Nina’s second name is or where she studies but I’m willing to be it’s Leeds Met also as she’s linking to Olga.

Anonymous - An anonymous student blogger. Not in TWL style unfortunately (would be funny if it was) I just think this person’s forgot to enter his/her name.

Rachel Todd - Rachel’s a studying her master’s degree in PR at Leeds Met. Think she’s a pro already as she’s currently working for an art company.

Anderson Lima - A masters degree student from Leeds Met. Any relation to Adriana (hubba hubba) Lima one wonders?

Cillian Naughton - Doesn’t say but I bet it’s Leeds Met.

Ya-Chi - A Taiwanese master’s student at Leeds Met.

Katarzyna - A Polish master’s degree student at Leeds Met.

Haley Wilson - A PR student at Leeds Met.

PR Bitches (ooh er, missus) - A Hungarian PR student from Bournemouth University.

Natalie Smith - A PR student from Leeds Met.

Jack Adlam - A second year PR student from Leeds Met.

Hayley Wilson - A PR student at Leeds Met

So there you have it, or them, rather. Anymore let me know and I’ll add them.

Two things

Posted at 4:42pm in Off topic, PR General | Leave a Comment

PRBLOGGER 2.5

Come on in. Take your shoes of first though and mind the carpet as you may have noticed I’ve been decorating. Well, not me specifically but thanks to WordPress wizard, Matt Brett, the blog’s had a few tweaks here and there. Namely the font (PRBLOGGER’s rolling with Arial these days); a Twitter plugin to replace the moblog (I might have mentioned Twitter once or twice lately); new navigation buttons (hover over ‘em and watch ‘em glow); new archives page (almost three years long now) and a host of other back end stuff.

This baby’s purring like a lolcat.

SOCIAL MEDIA: THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY FOR TRADITIONAL MEDIA?

That’s the question that’ll be on everyone’s lips at the CIPR HQ on the 26th of this month where I’ll be on a panel alongside the BBC’s Head of Editorial Development and Multi-Media Journalism, Pete Clifton, and Communities Editor of Telegraph.co.uk, Shane Richmond. Should make for an interesting discussion and one that hopefully stirs the audience up a bit because, quite frankly, I think (except for those in my RSS reader) the UK PR industry is lagging a bit. I know I’m not alone thinking this either.

Thanks to Daljit Bhurji for putting it together. Tickets are all sold from what I gather by Daljit. Should be good.

Tweeters: Stop spamming my Facebook!

Posted Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 5:41pm in Off topic | 18 Comments

Okay I’m going to have a bit of a rant here. I kinda feel a bit iffy writing this as it looks like I’m complaining about some of my mates, but I’m not… Well, I am, but not in a bad way. Take this blog post as a friendly rant (hence the smileys) - you know, like someone you really really like but just does one little thing to annoy you - but a rant none the less. Here goes: If there’s one thing that reeeeaaaalllly annoys me on Facebook, it’s when my contacts update their status updates using Twitter.

Aaaaarrgghhhh!

Seriously, dude, maybe you should start using Facebook status updates in the way in which Mr Zukerburg intended? I follow you on Twitter and we’re friends on Facebook so we’ve obviously got a good relationship going on. But, dude, you’re inundating me with your updates and I’m reading them multiple times.

Aaaaarrgghhhh!

What do your Facebook friends think? I’m talking about the non-geek, non-Twitter users here. They must think you’re insane, yes?

Case study: (names changed to protect the guilty)

Bob has been using Twitter to update his Facebook status updates for three weeks now. Bob’s friends log in to Facebook and see this crap:

Bob is twittering: @joeblogs Yeah!

Bob is twittering: This baby tastes good.

Bob is twittering: @joeblogs No, I saw it last week!

Bob is twittering: @samboy I’m introducing you to @joeblogs. Say hello to each other.

**Bob’s friends collectively think Bob’s lost the plot.**

Aaaaarrgghhhh!

Seriously, I’m just having a bit of pokey fun here but I’m sure I’m not the only one here that thinks the same?

Anyone? Anyone?

The Twitter Effect

Posted Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 6:44pm in Blogging, Media | 14 Comments

Are you a blogger? Are people not commenting on your blog posts like they used to? Is your traffic down a little? Don’t take it personally, you’re just experiencing the Twitter Effect. Everyone’s having similar experiences too, so don’t worry.

Seriously though, I have a sneaking suspicion that Twitter’s killing the blog star. Maybe I’m being a little over-dramatic here but there’s certainly a new distraction in town and blogs in all shapes and forms are being neglected around the globe. What were previously considered the ‘be all and end all’ murderer of the PR profession, blogs are now a bit like the abandoned child who was once the apple of his daddy’s eye. Poor things.

Reminds me of a man and wife that’s been married for a few years and the spark has faded a little. They still adore one another but, hey, you can’t stay in and watch TV together all of your life. You need to go with the guys or gals to drink and flirt a little. The blog will still be there when you come home. No worries.

Everyone’s going through it. Hugh Macleod, once a prolific blogger hasn’t written anything in seven days. “That’s not a long time”, I hear you say but given that he used to post mulitple times daily, it is. Take a look as his last blog post also. My mate, Youngie, lives on Twitter and doesn’t blog half as much as he used to but he tweets like a trooper for both personal and business reasons too.

Thing is, Twitter’s great for quick and personal communication and sharing. I love it. But you can’t make your point in a long, articulate and constructive manner with links to external sites and all the SEO benefits that come with it, like you can with a blog post.

It’s probably beneficial to try to get the best of both worlds.

List of YouTube Brand Channels

Posted Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 10:45pm in Business, Media, PR General | 5 Comments

It’s been 18 months since YouTube launched its Brand Channels initiative which allows brands to customise their own YouTube page with background images, additional links and eradicate the standard banner advertising of a regular YouTube page.

It’s been quite interesting to see which brands have been creating their own channels so I’ve compiled a (by no means comprehensive) list of those that have done so. Who knows, it might come in handy when you’re trying to sell it in to clients? I wonder what the costs are of setting a branded channel up? Nothing mentioned on YouTube’s advertising brand channel.