Archive for Communications

Are you following me?

20 April 2012 Rachel Blogging, Social Media No comments

I love to blog. However, there are times of year when I have to neglect this hobby of mine, such as exam season. Do not worry, I am still around, and while I am not in the library you will probably still find me micro-blogging, pinning and tweeting. So, are you following me?

Click the pictures or titles for links to my profiles.

Linkedin

Follow my professional progress and read about how I am developing my skills on my career journey. I prefer to connect with people I either know or with whom I am in contact.

Twitter

Ask my friends and they will tell you I am quite the Twitter addict! I check the site regularly and like to join the conversation. Follow me for a bit of a chat!

 

Tumblr

Sorry to disappoint but the pirate image is a bit misleading. Rather than share my travels across the seven seas I use Tumblr to share all the interesting things I consider too big for Twitter but too small for my blog. Expect a lot of videos about PR campaigns, sports or just really cool stuff! I am quite new to tumblr’ing so would love to find new accounts for me to follow, sharing equally cool stuff!

 

Goodreads

I joined Goodreads in the hope it would encourage me to read more books and start reviewing them more often. So far, my progress is slow, but I would love to connect with you and see what books you are rating and recommending!

 

 

Pinterest

Following the Pinterest hype we experienced earlier this year I jumped on the bandwagon. I did not expect to enjoy it so much, but I found I loved pinning and repinning images. Follow my pins to see brilliant images of sports, fashion, architecture and the odd social media infographic.

 

Google Plus

I will be honest with you, I am still unsure of the role Google Plus will play in my life. However, I think we should not be hasty and dismiss it too soon. Feel free to connect with me over Google Plus and perhaps we can work out its purpose together!

 

 

Undoubtedly I will be back to my blogging as soon as my deadlines pass, so please remember to follow this blog! In the meantime come and join me on other social media platforms. Through sharing and interacting maybe we could all learn something new!

bloglovin

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Life without Facebook

12 April 2012 Rachel Social Media 2 comments
Facebook Notifications Feed

Facebook Notifications Feed (Photo credit: dannysullivan)

I’ll Facebook you. When a brand name migrates into a verb you realise that it has made its impact. Very few would argue that Facebook has not made an impact, in fact many consider that it has revolutionised the way we communicate. It has only been with us since 2004, and I would guess the majority of us joined post 2007/8, yet it has become an integral part of our lives, or has it?

I wanted to consider the impact Facebook has had on my life. I am a heavy user, according to my browser Facebook is my number one most visited site. Notifications come straight to my phone, and I still regularly visit the mobile site. I did consider as an experiment deactivating my Facebook account for a while, but I realised that I could not do this. Why? What has Facebook done to have become so vital to me? There are three main reasons:

  1. In Summer I am starting a new job in a new town I do not know. The easiest way for me to connect with new people I meet is by Facebook. It is also the easiest way to keep in touch with family and friends when I move away.
  2. I am active in my sports team (I have written a lot about it here). As a group we communicate entirely by Facebook, we have an emailing list, but we do not not use it, why? Because Facebook has proved itself a more reliable tool. I lose Facebook and I lose this connection.
  3. I have friends and family who I solely contact by Facebook. They live over the world, sure I could get their email, but it isn’t likely. Facebook has become the easiest way to communicate with people.

Why is it so important to us? Facebook took an important part of our lives and digitalised it. We are social creatures, we live to connect with other people, we love to gain information. Facebook put this online, made it easier for us to interact with our friends and acquaintances. Quickly we integrated this into our lives, because it made life more convenient.

Who can predict the future of Facebook, indeed I think I once predicted its downfall on this blog, which did not materialise. It continues to keep going! Perhaps one day the Facebook babies of the world, the ones who we have actually watched from the womb to birth and as they grow up, perhaps they will one day find themselves Facebooking!

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Smart Car drives Twitter

11 April 2012 Rachel Communications, Social Media No comments

I saw this video on The Next Web. It demonstrates a fun and clever use of Twitter as a tool for promotion.

Have you seen any other great and interesting uses of Twitter?

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How important is Maths in PR?

27 March 2012 Rachel Education, Public Relations 2 comments

Image via Matt Banks

My Public Relations course contains a lot of great modules, but one thing that I feel it has lacked so far is the development of maths skills. This may sound like a slightly bizarre desire considering my course does not inspire images of studying numbers. Perhaps it is explained by understanding that I am the daughter of not one, but two maths teachers. I never took maths past GCSE level, preferring to concentrate humanity and media subjects but I have always had a soft spot for maths.

In my previous job my maths skills came in handy almost constantly, from checking payroll to designing spreadsheets. Undeniably maths is a useful skill in life, ensure that you are getting the best value for money at the supermarket and not being ripped off by dubious offers, cooking the required quantity of food, even in planning your day a good understanding of numbers can be beneficial. But I ask myself, where does the value of maths lie in the world of PR?

Budgeting

It would be lovely to imagine there is a pool of endless resources out there, but there are not. Budgeting plays a vital role in any PR professional’s life. Being able to offer cost-effective strategies to create a good return on investment, or even the dreaded AVE. I have been picked up on my tendency to bring budgeting and finance into my university projects, from our first PR campaign assignment the finance was at the forefront of my mind.

Measurement

Back to ROI and AVE (you may not like it, but it is still used), being able to measure the success of a campaign is essential. Having a good understanding of numbers can only help in this case.

Research

You will not always have the opportunity to pay for your research to be analysed and therefore having a good grasp of mathematics is required to understand and rationalise research required.

Administration

We may not like it, but administration involves itself in many roles. My previous experience of admin has involved me needing a great understanding of maths. While it is not always necessary, it is endlessly beneficial.

I would be interested to hear other examples where maths skills have benefited you during your PR career.

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What is influence?

26 March 2012 Rachel Social Media 2 comments
Blue question mark

Blue question mark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the past 10 years the world of Digital PR has grown at a frantic pace. It is now widely accepted that being online is not just the sign of a modern, innovative organisation, but a necessity for life in the modern world. The thing is, we are able to understand the importance of being online, but otherwise, we do not really understand how digital PR works.

I think this is brilliantly demonstrated through Michael White’s post on Facebook. Another important area which suffers from much confusion is measuring online influence. Undoubtedly there are loads of benefits to being influential online, from raised awareness of your cause, to increasing online sales. From a student perspective, having online influence can be a good way to gain opportunities and begin working life at an advantage.

How can we measure influence? Influence is subjective, it depends upon a combination of audiences, platforms and messages. There are a number of services available which will measure your online influence including Klout, PeerIndex and Kred. Each one taking your online activity and interactions then grading them according to their own specifications, the results is a number which represents your online influence. How accurate is it though?

Let us look at Social Student, a list of the most influential PR students in the UK compiled by Richard Bailey at Behind the Spin. The list uses PeerIndex and Klout in order to determine the influence of all active British PR students on Twitter. After a few shakey weeks trying to establish the list, it soon took a good shape and now I would say the list is a pretty decent representation of active Tweeting students. In this case you could say that measuring influence has been successful. It is important to note that this should not be the only form of measuring influence, there will be plenty of future PR stars who are active on Twitter but do not feature on the list.

The thing is, while Klout and PeerIndex can offer a guide to influence it is widely accepted that they cannot measure it. A post on Mashable defines influence at:

Influence = (Personal Brand * Knowledge * Trust2)

It explains that this can be measured through engagement, incoming links, incoming traffic, connections, recommendations etc. This goes back to the idea of systems like Klout and PeerIndex being able to measure your influence.

Brian Solis recently published a report on digital influence (available here) in which he claims that sites such as Klout and PeerIndex do not measure influence, but in fact they measure the individual’s capacity to influence. Influence is subjective and does rely on the nature of people, which is something that is hard, to impossible to program a system to measure. However the sites do show how influential a person is able to be, a very useful piece of data. If you realised you had the capacity to be influential, would you not take advantage of it?

The rising importance of digital influence will continue to shape the online world, and we are certain to see more, new and improved influence measuring tools. How do you think we can measure influence?

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Welcoming change to Aim High

24 March 2012 Rachel Blogging No comments

I remember when I was first introduced to the idea of having my own website. I was 8 and we had just signed up to the internet at home. The idea of being able to have my own website was exciting but I had no idea what I wanted to share on the web. Over 10 years later I found myself enjoying blogging, and today I share with you my own domain name, www.rachelbarkley.co.uk has joined the web!

There are many reasons people get their own domain names, my personal reason is quite simple, it’s for my own satisfaction. I have had a lot of fun with blogging and wanted to move on, this seemed a natural progression.

Working with WordPress.org has been interesting, providing plenty of challenges. It looks so familiar but in fact is very different from using WordPress.com. There is still plenty to change and improve but I am happy enough with it to share it with you all!

You may need to re-subscribe, and I hope you will.

My blog is not yet finished. I have loads of ideas I want to try out, test and improve upon. This is simply the first step towards achieving this.

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Save the Hobbit

16 March 2012 Rachel News, Social Media 3 comments

I visited the Hobbit in Southampton some years ago, and while the night itself is hazy (not necessarily as a result of alcohol, rather the length of time that has since elapsed), the place made its impression on me and I was enchanted. So, when I heard that the pub was facing legal action from the Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood company holding the rights to many of  Tolkien’s works, I was as shocked as many of the other fans of the pub were. They were being to asked, or should I say told, to rebrand an image they have had for 20 years, an image key to the identity of the pub.

The support for the Hobbit has been remarkable, from almost 50,000 fans on their Facebook, over 6,000 on their Twitter and several celebrity supporters including Gandalf (or Sir Ian Mckellen to non-middle earthians) and Stephen Fry.

According to reports the Saul Zaentz Company is willing to offer a licensing agreement to the pub. However the campaign clearly is not over according to their own page.

It seems that this whole thing could turn out to be advantageous to the pub, as long as they are able to retain their name. With new support from huge celebrities and new UK/Worldwide coverage, they could see themselves benefit from a boost to business, particularly with the release of the Hobbit film. As a one-time customer who fell slightly in love with the place I completely support the success of this campaign and I hope that the hobbit succeeds versus the evil of Mordor! Now excuse me as I start a 12hour LOTR marathon!

Update:

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How to follow up #Kony2012

14 March 2012 Rachel Communications, News, Social Media 8 comments

Only last week #Kony2012 took over Twitter. One video created the single biggest response that I personally have ever seen from the online world, so strong that there were claims that this was an example of social media’s power to change the world.

A week later it is no longer trending on Twitter, but people are still talking about Kony. If I was in charge of the campaign, this is what I would be doing now.

Follow up on the original hype

With over 72 million views on the original Youtube video it is clear that Kony 2012 grabbed the world’s interest. Facebook, Youtube and Twitter all went crazy with reaction to the video, it sparked passion from its audience and left millions of people wanting to help make a difference. A week later, people are still interested, the original video gained their interest but it is important to follow that up, continue to send information to those people interested about the campaign and what they can do to help. Once you have got their attention, make sure you use it!

Respond to the critics

With the buzz caused by the video came many critics, with claims of Kony 2012 being irrelevant, out of date and the work of privileged foreigners, including critics from Uganda. One of the best criticism, or at least one of the most relatable ones, I read was not directed at the #Kony2012 campaign but at the earlier work of Invisible Children but remains relevant, it came from Ilto blog:

“Imagine that today you heard about what happened in NYC and Washington DC on September 11, 2001 for the first time. You were shown a video of footage from that day. You saw the planes hit the towers, you heard President Bush’s address, you saw the Pentagon wreckage, you watch in horror as you see people plunge to their death, jumping from the burning towers. Now imagine that you are inspired by this disaster. You want to something to help. What if you went to NYC today, expecting to see piles of rubble to clean up? What if you went, expecting that there would be thousands of people in the streets crying, looking for loved ones? But what would happen when you arrived and discovered that there was none of this, but a whole host of other problems?”

Some people were convinced by the story, but wanted to know how they expected social media support to help the issue. People also questioned what was happening with the money!

The best way to respond to this is through being open and honest with the interested publics, and while researching this post I found that Invisible Children had done just that, they created a brilliant video full of information about how the organisation works.

Thank you, KONY 2012 Supporters from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

This video is a brilliant PR response to the criticism and I think it is important to continue sharing this information with interested publics.

Continue hype over event

An important part of the campaign was the Cover the Night event, the Leeds event alone has 7,500 confirmed attendees, now it will be interesting to see how this turns out. A lot of people signed up in the full buzz of the campaign, but this event has the potential to be an important and exciting part of their campaign. I would work to continue to create a buzz around the event to keep people interested in the whole campaign.

From a strategic point of view, this campaign is in a brilliant position and they seem to be doing everything right at the moment. As long as they continue to capitalise on their current success and develop this to support their campaign then it could be an example of one of the biggest successful social media campaigns.

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America’s Fat Future

14 March 2012 Rachel Communications One comment

A lot of my searches which find their way onto my blog are obesity related. Perhaps this should not be a surprise, obesity is one of the biggest problems in the UK and I have previously written about obesity campaigns (view here).

I recently had this infographic about obesity in America shared with me. As in the UK we have been brought up with the image of America being an overweight country it is easy to ignore the shocking facts, however obesity in the UK is a huge, and growing problem. Click on the image below to see the full infographic.

I love infographics as a way to share information, this image could have easily made a significant essay, but how many people would have read it then?

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Who is Kony?

7 March 2012 Rachel News, Social Media 4 comments

We can write for years about the potential of social media but every do often along comes an example which demonstrates the power and ability social media has.

We all know social media has changed modern communications. When my parents were at university they used a phone box and letters to speak to their parents. I send texts, Facebook messages and Skype my parents. I do not often read actual newspapers (should a PR student admit to this?), I get my news online, from Twitter links, newspaper website, news agencies, blogs, Facebook. Our lives have been changed by the internet.

I think social media has a lot of power, much of which we have yet to recognise and release. It relates to our need as humans to connect and helps pull down barriers caused by modern life and far away families and friends.

Last night #Kony2012 took over my Twitter feed. I had no idea what it was, where it came from, who was behind it. I had heard of child soldiers, but never of Kony, and I do not think I ever understood the reality of the situation. I am not alone, most people do not know who Kony is, what he does and who he does it to. That is the point of #Kony2012. A campaign designed to educate us about this situation and help us change it.

It took over Twitter. It took over Facebook. It took over Youtube. It took over blogs. Its popularity was such that its website crashed!

The campaign appeals to human behaviour and motivations. As a species, despite all our faults, morally we cannot accept injustice and harm to people. We want to change it and give everyone the chance of a great life. The campaign video hits people where it hurts, it is emotive, shocking and inspiring.

Let us hope that #Kony2012 does not disappear overnight like so many previous trending topics, but that the campaign’s goals are realised. That will show us the real power of social media.

Want to find out more about the campaign? Visit the website, Kony 2012.

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