PR Place is one year old

PR Place is one year old this month. We hope that we are starting to become established as the go-to space for people working in or learning about PR and comms who are looking for something a little bit more thoughtful and in-depth.

At PR Academy, we set up PR Place because we felt there was a bit of a gap and it seems to fit with the way we teach and train which is by encouraging an evidence based approach to practice.

Opinion is good, and we carry that too but it’s important to be able to separate opinion and speculation from something supported by evidence.

We’re enjoying curating content. Editor Richard Bailey’s #ThisWeekinPR is a brilliant round up of what others are saying. The reason I think it works so well is that because it is true content curation. Richard looks out for what he thinks will interest you. It isn’t an automatic scrape. I know he likes to include new and different voices and is always happy to have content flagged as a possible contender.

With #prstudent #bestprblogs Richard is building on what he started with Behind the Spin and its really gathering momentum – keep ‘em coming! Each year will be picking out the best – this year it was Orlagh Shanks with Jessica Pardoe highly commended. Who will it be in 2019?

In the past year we have published 175 articles, book reviews, case studies and thought pieces and our bank of guides and toolkits for members continues to grow.

Our top three – the ones that you visited the most were:

• Storytelling
• Developing and writing a communication strategy
• Stakeholders, a guide to identification and mapping

Others guides we launched were:

• Using communication theory for PR and internal communication
• Writing reports, proposals and business cases
• Reflective practice

And no list of guides would be complete without “How to write a press release”!

We’ve featured some brilliant work from PR Academy CIPR PR Diploma students. Jennifer Ross’s article “How to speak emoji” was a winner for her PR Diploma course work and for readers. As was Richard Eaton’s piece reminding us of the importance of old media and Laura du Plessis on personal branding in the higher education sector.

One of my favourite things was the launch of #50over50. In all the talk about diversity age is something that is often forgotten. I think PR needs the wisdom, knowledge and experience that having been around the block a few times brings.

Andrew Bruce Smith is a brilliant example. He is one of the first people I turn to when it comes to SEO and Google analytics because I know he understands business as well as tech and social. We need to remember too that many PR campaigns need to reach the more mature customer – we’re a growing group often with money to spend and who better to understand that demographic?

PR Place is also about careers. “Dear Dr Yaxley” is a regular feature where Heather Yaxley answers questions about careers in PR. We aim to show that careers in PR and communication are varied, it isn’t all about getting on to the board (although that’s great too!).

We would love to hear what you think of PR Place and how we should develop it for 2019. We invite contributions too – get in touch if you have something that you think others would find of interest. We’d love to hear from you!

Twitter: @Pr_Place | Email: editor@prplace.com