Social Media Index

 
Edelman’s Eurpoean CEO, David Brian has summarised an interesting attempt to measure social media via what they call the “Social Media Index“. This is an attempt at opening a debate about how to rank social media.

They test drove their methodology by using the top 30 bloggers from the CNET Blog 100 list and scored them based on their presence in the following:

Blog – analysed Google Rank, inbound links, subscribers, alexa rank, content focus, frequency of updates, number of comments
Multi-format – analysed Facebook – number of friends
Mini-updates – analysed Twitter – number of friends, followers and updates
Business cards – analysed LinkedIn – number of contacts
Visual – analysed Flickr – number of photos uploaded from the person/s or about the person/s
Favourites – analysed Digg, del.icio.us

PR case study – Starlight Cinema

Starlight Cinema is the biggest and best outdoor cinema for those living and working on Sydney’s North Shore (and those brave enough to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge)! It runs over the summer months in Pittwater and North Sydney.

CP Communications was engaged to significantly raise the profile of Starlight Cinema on the North Shore and with major metros in the entertainment sections. Jill Keyte, Managing Director of High As A Keyte, a boutique event management company, “engaged CP Communications to promote the ‘jewel in its crown’ of annual events, Starlight Cinema, because we were looking for a PR company with a different approach”. 

Using media releases as the medium to distribute information and engage journalists’ interest, CPC wrote and distributed 10 releases over the season. Topics ranged from a family theme targeting family and parenting journalists and publications, to music publications with bands at Surf on the Turf, activities for Australia Day and entertainment writers were contacted for the launch of both seasons.

In addition to media coverage, CPC also devised a strategy to target people not on the Starlight Cinema mailing list, by offering giveaways via enewsletters distributed to thousands of people. These included Clearly Business, Sydney Writers Centre and PRIA.

Massive media coverage was achieved with over 25 print articles covering the Cinema, and over 45 online articles/mentions. Many publications covered Starlight Cinema, including The Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, Sun-Herald, City Weekly, Good Weekend, Drum Media, Real Surf, Mosman Daily, Peninsula Living, Northside Courier, The Manly Daily, Northern Beaches Weekender and www.news.com.au

“We liked Catriona’s enthusiasm for Starlight Cinema, her ideas and persistent drive to attract publicity, she provided excellent service,” Ms Keyte said.

How to write an article training

One of the most often read posts on this blog is are the ones about how to write an article. If you want to spend time learning how to write feature articles that will get published I would recommend a course that I have done at The Sydney Writers Centre – Feature writing for magazines and newspapers

This is the outline:
If you like the idea of writing articles for magazines and newspapers, this course is for you. It suits first-time writers or anyone who wants to brush up on their writing skills. The course will teach you about:
# which ideas work – and where to get them
# understanding the magazine/news market
# different types of feature articles
# how to research, structure and write a feature
# what editors want from a writer
# how to pitch your article or idea to a magazine and sell it!

If you would like to see your article in CLEO, The Sydney Morning Herald, Wheels or Ralph, we’ll show you how.

This course is presented by Valerie Khoo, an award-winning feature writer whose articles appear every week in The Sydney Morning Herald. Before becoming a freelance writer six years ago, she was features director of CLEO.

This writing course is usually held in the evenings at the Sydney Writers’ Centre. It is a 5-week course (evening classes) as well Intensive Daytime Session.

What makes a great networker?

 1. Most people have absolutely no idea what networking really means. They attend events thinking it is about them – which is totally not true. A good networking knows that networking and building relationships is about taking the time to find out about others and from there working out if there is any synergy, or how their service or products could help that person with meeting their business or personal goals.
 
2. Great networkers follow up those they meet. If you tell people you are going to call, do it. There may be some months where you are so busy extra business is not a priority so, if this is the case when you meet people, simply say “It was great to meet you. I would like to find out more about your business so let’s catch up at the next month’s networking event”. It’ about having manners.      

3. Switch on networkers don’t attend events based on who’s guest speaking they know it’s all about who else is in the room. Anyway, from even the worst speaker, if you can’t gain one tip to take home and implement you need to either re-evaluate how you are judging others or start listening with a more open frame of mind.
     
 4. The savvy networker is never prejudice against those in the room based on their own agenda. A good example of this would be a corporate attending a networking event where on the surface all attendees appear to be from the small or home-based business sector. They feel they have nothing in common and, worse still, the people in the room are of no use to their business agenda. They are completely missing the fact that every attendee in the room has at least 300 networking contacts many of which are exactly the people the corporate is seeking introductions to. 
 
The facts are that not everyone can see the big picture of networking. If you’re not willing to put in the hard yards and build relationships, you will spend most of your time attending numerous networking events in the hope that one day what you view as a potential client will be coincidently placed at your table, hand over their credit card and say run up what you want. I can absolutely guarantee the true cost of networking to you personally goes well beyond purchasing your ticket to attend an event.   
 
Tips from Lynette Palmen, Founder and Managing Director, Women’s Network Australia

Media Monitoring with Google Alerts

 Small businesses do not have the budgets to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media. I encourage my clients to use Google Alerts – and I have one for each of my clients so I can track their coverage. Obviously this only applies to coverage that has been posted online so don’t rely on this to track coverage in trade publications.

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

• Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
  monitoring a developing news story
  keeping current on a competitor or industry
  tracking stories in other blogs
  tracking stories/topics in your industries

To create a Google Alert:
Go to www.google.com/alerts
Fill in the ‘form’ by adding your search terms. The Type dropdown let’s you choose from News, Blogs, Web, Google Groups, and Comprehensive. The Comprehensive option will search all options – which is what I use.
Select how Often you wish to receive the alerts -  Once a day, as-it-happens, or once a week.
Hit Create Alert and you’ll start receiving emails with your alerts!

PR case study – Columbia Aged Care Services

 Columbia Aged Care Services is a private aged care group, offering residential aged care facilities across Sydney. CP Communications manages a wide range of communications projects for Columbia, some of which included the closing and opening of an aged care centre, respite care and low care promotional campaigns, and copywriting various brochures, websites and advertising.

The launch of the Willowood Centre comprised an initial community awareness campaign when the building was demolished, which included letters to residents and their families and managing staff communication. CEO Anne Tucker said the closure of Willowood was “obviously a very sensitive project and Catriona handled all of the media and communications with skill, sensitivity and professionalism”.

CP Communications was responsible for the launch of the new Willowood Centre by local Federal Member The Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP. This included inviting industry and local media, developing a video of the rebuild, speeches and briefing Dr Nelson. In addition to the launch, CPC developed media angles for the sustainable aspect of the building.

The Willowood Campaign was covered in every industry publication, including InSite, Hospital Healthcare, AgedCare Australia, www.EnvironmentalManagementNews.net and both the Sydney Weekly and North Shore Times.

“Catriona successfully promoted the launch our new centre, following the rebuild and is achieving very positive media coverage in the papers and industry magazines. She is increasing our profile within the community through creative and original strategies,” said Ms Tucker.

PR key words to drive traffic

When writing articles on PR what are the key words that will drive a lot of traffic to your article. Below are the keywords business owners are using to find out who can help them grow their companies.

If you use these keywords as the subject of an article you are likely going to get more business owners learning about your services.

Tip: Use the keyword as your article title or in your article title. Also use the keyword 3-5 times in the article itself so we can help you rank for that keyword and bring in more visitors.

Here is the list for Public Relations related keywords:

·         media relations

·         pr

·         pr agency

·         pr firm

·         pr firms

·         public relations

·         public relations agencies

·         public relations agency

·         public relations career

·         public relations company

·         public relations consultant

·         public relations firm

·         public relations firms

·         public relations services