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B2Best Practice Marketing works with businesses in the North West of England (and beyond) to improve their web performance. With extensive marketing and PR experience, both in agency and in-house, we create rich content and partner web designers to maximise the effectiveness of business websites. For an increasing number of clients we also run digital PR programmes at an international level.

Small businesses need PR too

Public awareness of PR as an industry has never been higher but many small businesses are unsure of what it can do for them. ‘PR is all spin and lies’ or ‘It’s not relevant to my business’ are comments I’ve heard many times over. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with the first (by the way, the latest series of ‘The thick of it’ is just amazing) but if they think the second, they’re missing a trick.

Have you got a content rich website that generates traffic, keeps visitors there long enough to read about your products and services and makes them want to get in contact? Because that’s what PR can do for you. Advice, tips, case studies, discussion, general industry news, points of view, white papers - original, non-commercial content is what you need. It makes your readers think they’re getting something for nothing. But they’re actually buying into the idea that you are an authority in the market, with the ability to satisfy their very specific requirements and solve their problems.

Of course there are many other aspects to a top website but the effectiveness of blogs costing peanuts underlines once more that content is king. And if the discipline of generating a steady stream of interesting, well-written articles doesn’t appeal to you, briefing a good writer to ‘ghost it’ needn’t take much of your time - or cost a lot. And that’s just one of the reasons why small companies need PR.

Networking … it takes all sorts

I’ve been to two networking events over the last few days and they were polar opposites in terms of both style and usefulness.

The first was sector specific (marketing) and held in a noisy, crowded city centre location at the end of the day. Most people were there for the same reason - to look for work - but apart from a couple of representatives from employment agencies there was no-one to talk to except each other.

The second was arranged by the Business for Breakfast franchise. The location was easy to reach and park at (read no £10 NCP charge) and the event had a clear format and a good mix of people from different business backgrounds exchanging advice, referrals and a bit of pre-9am banter.

If you’re a) an early bird and b) want to use your time to good effect, you’ll know which to go for.

Know thyself

Recent involvement in a psychometrics project made me reflect. Although most of us have taken part in testing at some point in our careers (usually as part of a selection process) we typically receive no feedback. The results are used by potential employers as an aid to decision making - and remain confidential. In a recent study over 80% of HR departments said they employed some sort of testing but I have to conclude that psychometrics isn’t being used to its full potential when most findings remain under lock and key.

Over the past 80 years psychologists have developed many models to describe personality and thousands of research studies have been conducted. Every one of these models has probably contributed something to the general understanding of personality, defining it in terms of: role (as an actor might play a part), the self (a permanent entity at the heart of our experience), preferences for behaving in given ways, adapting to the environment; and probability that an individual will act in certain ways.

Understanding what drives us and people around us can help us to become better communicators and ultimately raise performance and job satisfaction. I’m looking at this as much from the point of view of the employee as the business. For starters, perhaps it’s a way out of the appraisal impasse; the manager wants his or her team member to be more something or less something else, but the person in question has no practical way of achieving this. We’re not talking huge personality shifts, but subtle changes that are realistically achievable if people are given the tools.

Criteria For Qualifying Social Media Consultants

I spent a happy hour following a discussion on one of my Linkedin groups: 5 Criteria For Qualifying Social Media Consultants. “They need to have at least three years’ experience,” opined someone confidently, “although I have ten.” “Oh no you don’t!” replied another, “it hasn‘t been around that long.” “Oh yes it has.” (Well, it is the pantomime season soon.) Another just went into a sales spiel and provided a (seemingly) auto-generated response which contained the term ROI several times over while a third ventured that “Perhaps someone should offer a certification programme - It could be profitable,” he added helpfully.

The interesting stuff generally comes when you scroll down these discussions. The people who really have something to say prefer dipping a toe in the water first. Several pages down someone ‘fesses up: “Many PR companies are using junior staff to handle this work because the technology terrifies them.”

It had been left to someone else to inject some sense into the argument. “I think a SM consultant who knows "old" marketing would be high on the list. As SM is just a tool, it helps to have a good knowledge of the basics. They may know how to use Twitter, but if your audience isn't there, who cares?” Nice one, Robin Horton.

So how do you qualify Social Media Consultants? Simple. Do they understand your business and its objectives? Does the activity they propose integrate into the comms plan? Have they taken the time to understand what’s happening ‘out there’ and who’s influential in your market place? Have they explained how they will take advantage of what’s already ‘out there’ or identified a niche that they can help your business to own? That would be a start.

Seventh Heaven?

Good news about Windows 7 then. The consensus is that it works with none of the sluggishness that got Vista such a bad name in such a short time. Some useful innovations but not a sea change - and none of the ‘in your face-ness’ of the previous operating system. For example it doesn’t keep floating word balloons at the user.

It’s important for businesses that MicroSoft doesn’t take inbuilt obsolescence to extremes. In many companies machines are cascaded through the ranks and retain the operating systems they were sold with. If I swap work stations with a colleague it can hamper my productivity when I encounter an unfamiliar system. They’re not as intuitive as the designers would have us believe.

One thing I like about Windows 7 is Aero Snap - comparing the contents of two windows is made much easier. If I shove a window into the left or right edge of the screen, it expands to fill half of the desktop. Then by nudging another into the opposite edge of the screen, it occupies the other half. Click here for a nice overview from engadget.

By the way, Christian Science Monitor reports that compared with Vista and XP, W7 is the quickest to shut down. I can see what they mean but it’s not a reason in itself to crack open the champagne just yet.

Life after newspapers (2)

An issue that is exercising many of the best minds at present - the future of journalism in the digital age (see also Sept 15 post). A new report into The Reconstruction of American Journalism (The Washington Post/Columbia University) places the onus on society to assist funding for start-ups.

“The ranks of news gatherers in the US now include newsroom staffers, university faculty and students, bloggers and citizens armed with smartphones. Some of the startup news organisations are trying to become profitable, while many are operating as non-profits, financed by donations from philanthropists, foundations and readers, plus some corporate sponsorship and advertising. They could provide communities with diverse sources of news reporting. But most of the startups and their budgets are relatively small, and their finances are fragile.”

As PR practitioners we all appreciate the symbiosis of journalism and PR, and the challenge and reward of gaining coverage thanks to ‘real’ journalists - as well as the importance of high quality reporting to the democratic process. But in the UK, where philanthropy is less common than the US, where is the money going to come from?