This week in PR (10 August)

Behind the headlines

• Here is the memorandum of understanding between the APPC and PRCA, on which APPC members will vote in November. Public Affairs News reports a riposte against the proposed ‘takeover’ from former APPC chair Robbie MacDuff.
• UK Government is seeking a Head of EU Exit Communications. It’s accurately described as a ‘unique opportunity’. This is a Home Office appointment, suggesting it’s UK citizens who need informing and persuading.
• Text 100 has been named as the best Asia Pacific network to work for by Holmes Report.
• The  (ASA) this week ruled against big name food companies: Kelloggs, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s Restaurants.

Calendar

Insights and opinions: Pick of the posts

These are the editor’s pick of posts about public relations this week (UK focused, but with a global outlook). Recommendations are welcome to editor@prplace.com or @pr_place

Management and Consulting

• Iain Anderson: Finding the perfect fit: the inside story of Cicero’s acquisition of Westbourne (7 August)
  ‘Change creates business. More than that – as I like to say: “where there is confusion there is consultancy”. What the financial market maelstrom allowed us to do was to grow Cicero significantly enhancing our operation in Brussels and providing wider international reach.’
• Stefan Stern: Management – the human dimension (7 August)
  ‘Does the human manager face obsolescence, then, to be replaced by shiny and unflinching machinery? Hardly. Computers process data at miraculous speeds, and are only getting quicker. But do they exercise judgment? Can they actually think? Or do they just do what we, the humans, tell them to do?’
• Stephen Welch: Piloting your own way to the future (6 August)
  ‘While I was away I flew on a lot of airplanes all led by different types of people. Suddenly it hit me: the different types of pilots I encountered could be linked to business and how to solve business challenges as strategic advisers.’
• Andy West: Is the Global AoR model Dead & Buried (6 August)
  ‘I’m pleased to see that only 5% of the top professionals use a global agency of record. The glory days of the owned global networks are over. Today it’s about agility, local and regional domain knowledge, shared values and consistency.’

Business / profession

•  Steven Stokes: Evaluation will win communications the respect it deserves (8 August)
  ‘The greatest irony about our profession as communicators is that we are poor at communicating our own value to our organisations. We are PR people who forget to PR ourselves.’
• Aaron Griffiths: Why flexible working is the business (6 August)
  ‘At Battenhall we’ve been implementing 20% time for five years. This means we work a five-day week, but apply that 20% to the overall week so that every employee can take time for research and development. It fosters innovation, keeps us productive, and through our additional work, helps keep our clients happy too.’

 Public relations education

• Alastair McCapra: The truth about the state of public relations degrees (8 August)
  ‘Some people are concerned that Bournemouth is going to fold its PR teaching into a broader ‘marketing communications’ degree.’
• Cheyenne O’Kane: Why I chose to study PR at university (no date)
  ‘Between history and sports science PR had never cropped up in conversation, but the air of mystery around these two letters made it even more intriguing.’

Public and third sector

• Darren Caveney: What we need is a video – and 15 other things comms teams hear every week (9 August)
  ‘Here’s just a sample of what I have heard on my travels this year – the things which staff tell their comms team every month/week/day/hour.’
• Ruth Fry: A level playing field: why introducing a service level agreement is a must (6 August)
  ‘Inevitably, new priorities have emerged after the Plan was finalised, but the great thing about having an SLA is that we can simply ask client services which other priority they want to take the hours from: it quashes any expectation that there is a limitless supply of communications support.’

Careers and skills

• Katie de Cozar: In-house vs agency: busting the PR careers myth (no date)
  ‘Here are three statements that I hear time and time again, which just aren’t true.’
• Connor Taylor: My internship at Milk & Honey PR (no date)
  ‘My opinion was listened to and valued as if I had been there since day one. I was given actual responsibility and enough space to start elaborating and executing strategies on my own.’
• Hannah Tulloch: Top tips for grads looking to work in PR (no date)
  ‘If you are looking to get into PR, you may well be asking yourself what exactly companies are looking for when it comes to employing the latest and greatest PR talent?’
• Vassilena Valchanova: A Guide to Personal Productivity: Systems Come First (8 August)
  ‘Even the best tools will do you little good if you’re not familiar with some productivity basics. This is why I ditched the tool stack for a completely separate post and here I’ll focus on the underlying principles that make my process work.’
• Aedhmar Hynes: Secondment: Paying it Forward (7 August)
  ‘I never saw the world, or communications, quite the same after working at PARC. I’m guessing these people will one day look back on their time at the Media Lab and realize how much it impacted their career in ways they could not have imagined.’
• Ben Capper: Young people are people too (7 August)
  ‘These four steps aren’t some magic formula for “Engaging with Young People”. They represent the basic steps that all communicators need to go through to create effective creative solutions for whatever audience.’

Crisis and reputation

• Sheena Thomson: Recycling employees and reputation (7 August)
  ‘A redundancy programme – large or small – is an organisational reputation risk factor, and will typically be in any crisis communications plan.’
• Amanda Coleman: The reason why (5 August)
  ‘I want to use communication to help people and particularly when they are at the lowest point in their life. What could be more rewarding than knowing that you have made a difference to someone facing huge trauma.’
• Andreas Christophorou: Challenging press coverage on foster case was difficult and time consuming – but worth it (3 August)
  ‘What are the lessons for communications professionals from this case? Here are five things to consider.’
  

Internal communication

• Saskia Jones: 6 tips to streamline and solidify your internal communications (8 August)
  ‘Internal communicators generally aren’t meticulous planners. Who could blame us? We are endlessly buffeted by requests—most of which tend to be of the “urgent” and “last-minute” variety.’
• Katie Scott: PR organisation Bottle pays to take staff to music festival (8 August)
  ‘Oxford-based public relations organisation Bottle has taken its employees on a four-day, employer-funded trip to a music festival to boost employee engagement and creativity.’
• Keith Hatter: 8 reasons why Employee Engagement is in danger of disappearing up its own arse (6 August)
  ‘I believe engagement really matters and so it’s also why I’m deeply frustrated witnessing a thing that has the potential to be a force for good, get stuck in a cycle of rinse and repeat disappointment.’
• Adrian Cropley: Blurred Lines are an Opportunity to Focus (3 August)
  ‘Internal communication is faced with an opportunity to show how truthful, honest and authentic communication can rebuild trust and establish its role of facilitator and ethical advisor.’

Influencer marketing

• Jake O’Neil with Scott Guthrie: Influencer marketing: fake follower fraud, influencer metrics and #ad (8 August)
  ‘Unethical practices exist throughout the industry, with both influencers and PRs accused of wrongdoing. There is also a great deal of confusion from brands over what constitutes quality ROI and why high follower counts don’t always lead to killer results.’
• Sam Cookney: Influencer marketing: why EMV needs to go… (7 August)
  ‘I’m increasingly asked by clients for my view on using the latest vanity metric du jour, Earned Media Value (EMV), to measure influencer campaigns. The concept may sound familiar – EMV is essentially a born-again version of Advertising Value Equivalents (AVE) from the old PR world.’
• Elvira Bolat and Parisa Gilani: Instagram Influencers: when a special relationship with fans turns dark (7 August)
  ‘Influencers are effectively collaborating with their followers, building a network that helps them to establish a reputation from recommendations and referrals. That in turn, enables them to generate income through advertising deals.’
• Jennifer Sanchis: Is the influencer marketing bubble about to crash down to Earth? (6 August)
  ‘Success should be defined through long-term and mutually beneficial relationship building rather than highly visible one-hit campaigns.’

Media and digital

• Hamish Thompson: Twitter is a public square. Paving slabs can’t moderate speech. (9 August)
  ‘Many things said on Twitter that ought not be said – they’re savage, dangerous, unkind. But I question whether the people that created the paving stones ought to be the ones doing the policing.’
• Elliot Wilson: ISIS and social media: bad influencers (8 August)
  ‘ISIS has treated social media as a tool to target and connect with its ‘customers’, relaying a carefully honed message, much as, say, Coca-Cola, Samsung or Mercedes-Benz might do.’
• Michael White: Snapchat users fall as social media matures (8 August)
  ‘Whilst Snapchat may blame the poor community response to its app redesign, there is something else bigger at play here; the struggle to compete in a mature social media market.’
• Sophia Dass: Making the most of your Media Coverage (7 August)
  ‘Once media coverage has been attained, it’s important to extend its shelf-life. Sometimes, this requires thinking outside the box, but more often than not, social media and digital reporting can provide you with a myriad of opportunities to position your client as a thought leader.’
• Claire Simpson: Top ten: Social media best practice (5 August)
  ‘Rule number one on social is know your channel. Tailor your content to your channels, and tailor your channels to your audience.’