Hints & Tips
Wonder what it is like to work for a PR agency, curious how BP could have done it better, befuddled by the social networking choices available to you? If it is the inside track you are after, we are not afraid to say it “like it is”
Brand spanking novelty: shining through a hectic crowd
10th May 2013PR has for years been linked to branding – often for our involvement in building a brand’s credibility or even just protecting it. Now, as agencies (including that of yours truly) begin to offer more integrated communications packages, brand is at the absolute forefront...
View Post >5 Ways to spring clean your PR life
3rd May 2013Spring is here (dare I speak too soon!) and it’s time to align with the sunshine and maximise your productivity and creative flair. Inspired by This Little Lady’s blog about spring cleaning your life and ‘gettin’ happy’, I thought I would look at how...
View Post >The perfect 30-minute meeting
26th April 2013One of my personal missions at work it to make every meeting an event; to wow everyone involved, and to ensure that the meeting is seen as a good investment of time and not simply the chance to shoot the breeze! It keeps me...
View Post >How to cope with late nights and early mornings: A PR’s guide to resetting your industry body-clock
If only the PR industry worked to the normal working annual calendar – quiet summers during the school holiday period, an ‘ease off’ towards Christmas… No, no, no – not in PR land, which follows no set calendar whatsoever and instead peaks and troughs...
View Post >How can companies use memes?
19th April 2013Thinking about filming your company doing the Harlem Shake? Or perhaps taking a photo of you Dragon Balling your colleagues? Don’t. You’ve missed the boat. Meme trends are changing faster than ever before. Even some of the most popular memes only last 24 hours,...
View Post >The Art of Conversation: Networking heaven and hell
12th April 2013“Networking”. The word that can fill those in the PR industry with dread or delight; all the more so if there’s the likelihood of a glass of vino (or four) involved. Networking is essentially ‘meeting new people’, and these people could prove to be...
View Post >Ten PR must dos before going on holiday
5th April 2013OK, so, stupid me, I decided to write a blog the DAY I am about to take a week off from sunny Flagship, to what I fear will be a far less sunny break with my two children who are off for the Easter...
View Post >Life lessons from a sports supremo
8th March 2013Attending one of The Marketing Society’s recent events, I was lucky enough to catch an evening of conversation with one of Britain’s most successful sports promoters – the ‘People’s Promoter’, Barry Hearn. A candid and affable presence, Hearn offered some important lessons that we’d...
View Post >Welcome to the real world
26th September 2012Taking the first Bambi-like steps into the workplace leads Zoe to question whether universities prepare their students for the wider world. When starting in the workplace one of the biggest shocks to a graduate’s system, other than the loss of the student discount, are...
View Post >Are you faking it on social?
5th September 2012If there’s anything 90’s American teen-coms taught us, it’s that to be popular is to be powerful. Popularity and status are almost synonymous for many people, so it’s no surprise that when social media started taking off individuals and brands became fan fixated. This...
View Post >Protect your online security
22nd June 2012Last week saw a barrage of hack attacks taking place across the net. Most prominent in the media was 6.5 million passwords stolen from LinkedIn. No doubt, many travel professionals will be in the four per cent of site users that were targeted. Leaving...
View Post >Snap to it with Instagram
26th April 2012Suddenly, everyone’s a photographer. Retro inspired shots of door handles and street scenes litter my twitter, and Facebook’s just a mélange of sepia snaps. Instagram fever is sweeping the nation, as users take and share photos with their smart phone, using filters to add...
View Post >Five things young people can teach you about effective campaigns
23rd March 2012Last week I assisted with a wrap-up event for one of our clients, Sumitomo Chemical, manufacturer of the Olyset Net, along with the Royal Commonwealth Society, to close the first stage of its ‘Me and My Net’ competition and malaria awareness initiative. The purpose...
View Post >Guest post: Take a good look at your Google Analytics before you decide to invest in SEO
17th February 2012The starting point for most businesses embarking on an SEO campaign is (obviously) the desire to drive more visitors. But all too often, businesses focus their attention and resources on building traffic before they have really come to understand what’s happening on their website....
View Post >I Get a Good Feeling: Tried and tested advice
27th January 2012It’s Friday. So-close-to-February-it’s-silly Friday. It was also sunny. Which means that most of us are caught up in the end-of-week euphoria that precedes the weekend. In our establishment, this means that everyone is even perkier today than usual, (and we’re pretty perky in the...
View Post >Be Prepared…Be Very Prepared
17th January 2012The News of the World hacking scandal and the subsequent Levenson Inquiry into press ethics has, for most of us, merely reinforced our jaundiced view of Britain’s Fourth Estate. And we’re not alone: the perception worldwide is that journalists, along with politicians, are untrustworthy....
View Post >Journalists’ top five event pet peeves
27th October 2011Many of the events we organise involve invitations to the media. We know what turns them off and what captures their imagination. When we offered them the chance to sound off about events, they didn’t hold back. So take note and please share your...
View Post >Events: Going social
Social media has taken event planning to a whole new level. It gives marketers the opportunity to extend the reach of their events to global audiences and enables them to continue conversations well beyond the actual event. Communicating and promoting events through social channels...
View Post >What qualities make an entrepreneur?
20th July 2011All entrepreneurs are alike because all entrepreneurs are, or have been, successful: there’s no such thing as a failed entrepreneur. But aside from being successful, do entrepreneurs share any common characteristics’? Are they born or made? Is there a ‘typical’ entrepreneur? Well, yes and...
View Post >Guest Post: Five top tips for successful public affairs
12th July 2011Whether you’re a small independent charity or a large multinational corporation, politics and political decision makers will shape the framework within which you operate. Public affairs, Government Relations or lobbying, as it is colloquially known, is the process of engaging with Government, Parliament and...
View Post >A start-up guide to PR
28th June 2011As a start-up, one of the first steps to building your business is developing its reputation. A well managed public relations campaign will engage the right people to get you noticed and build your brand. Public relations works best when it’s targeted and is...
View Post >Social media for start-ups
For many start-ups, social media is a cost and time-effective means to develop conversations and PR for a brand. Peer to peer communications have never been more important, but social is not an end in itself – it’s just one of a number of...
View Post >Business etiquette in the digital age
20th May 2011The process of communicating is now easier than ever. We text, email, blog, tweet, Skype and, not often enough, pick up the phone for an actual conversation. Just the other day the fax machine whirred into gear in the office, which had most of...
View Post >Top five tips for PR photography
19th April 2011We all know a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s easy to forget the golden rules when under pressure to create an attention grabbing image. Here are some top tips for successful PR photography: Make sure there are only three main subjects...
View Post >Top tips for effective infographics
3rd March 2011Infographics as a diagrammatic way to explain information have been around for years, but only recently have they come into their own as a mainstream way of communicating information. Pairing data with clever design brings data to life and presents it in an easily...
View Post >My day in media (Pseudoscience)
28th February 2011Synopsis We know that the way we consume media has fundamentally changed during the last few years. I’d consider myself to be fairly active in keeping in touch with what’s going on in the papers, radio, online and TV, but I do it as...
View Post >Time management for a working mother
25th February 2011I spend a lot of my life running. To catch the train in the mornings, to drop my son off at nursery, to make the mother and toddlers’ group on Friday mornings. I even run up escalators on the underground to get places more...
View Post >Selling in to journalists
Journalism is largely a buyer’s market. The PR is the supplicant, with the journalist deciding whether or not to grant a favour. This doesn’t mean that the PR has to become Uriah Heep when approaching a journalist, but it pays to follow some of...
View Post >Solving the digital body language conundrum
“Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.” Samuel Butler We’re all writing more than ever. Texts, emails,...
View Post >A survival guide for attending shows
18th February 2011Shows, Conferences, Expos, Events. Whatever you chose to call them, the success or failure of your attendance can hinge on some forward planning and following some simple steps in advance. Whether you are going to support a client, network, speak or even hustle for...
View Post >An anthropological approach to social
My father wasn’t best pleased when I told him I was going to study Social Anthropology. You see, my siblings and my parents work in the oil industry. They understand maths and pipes and, well oil. So compared to this, the study of human...
View Post >Top tips on product placement
From the end of February product placement will be introduced on UK TV, giving companies the opportunity to pay for their brands or products to be featured in certain programmes. While it will take some time for the UK market to mature to US...
View Post >How not to post responses on blogs
17th February 2011One of our roles as PR advisors is to help our clients reach out the communities they want to influence – from a relatively “hands off” press release or perhaps a more “up close and personal” response on a worthwhile or relevant blog. We...
View Post >Top tips on how to write for Twitter
14th February 2011Turned off by Twitter? Not enough to say on the bigger picture? Fear not… These simple hints and tips will help you lead a happier, healthier social media existence, benefiting both you and your clients. Social media enthusiasm almost takes us all back to...
View Post >TV still a major turn on for PRs
As the would be Egyptian revolution fills our screens each night we’re reminded of the power of TV. It still has the ability to bring us together and start those water cooler conversations like no other medium. Sure, the internet is vital to all...
View Post >Love is in the air
11th February 2011As PR professionals there are three things we love: talking, talking and clients. But when we think about it, do we really love our clients enough? At this time of year we’re all bombarded with love-inspired paraphernalia, so perhaps it’s a good time to...
View Post >Talking about my generation
9th February 2011Having worked on clients in the people and workplace space for a number of years I know that the issues surrounding generational diversity have been on the news and business agenda for some time. When the media explosion around ‘Gen Ys’ in the workplace...
View Post >Consumer 2.0 = Tamagotchi
7th February 2011Ok, so maybe modern consumers aren’t entirely the same as the small screen virtual pets of the nineties that drove parents and teacher mad with their constant beeping. But maybe they are more like the 2011 release – 3D touch screen, surround sound, WiFi...
View Post >Working with radio live on location
4th February 2011Live radio can through up problems at the best of times. But when you’re on location things can really go wrong, so it’s important to be prepared. Recently we worked with three regional radio stations who broadcast live from one of Norwegian Cruise Line’s...
View Post >Wild-card interview questions: “How to catch a creative”
3rd February 2011Each week sees a different take on the state of the graduate job market in the media. Reports indicate that it’s on the rise one week, and down again the next. In this constantly shifting career world, employers are not only hitting candidates with...
View Post >What’s in a Twitter name?
When deciding to take your first steps into the world of Twitter, one of the initial decisions you’ll have to make is what you call yourself. What you put after that @ is all important these days… Your handle represents your person or brand...
View Post >Starbucks brews up a social media storm
4th November 2010FT columnist Lucy Kellaway argued recently that Starbucks shouldn't try to answer all customer complaints aired on Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/26drj8b. Flagship's Lewis Shields agrees and says this highlights the need for a social media strategy.
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