What I wrote for the Spark blog the other week
There was plenty of hullabaloo across the PR and journalist community last month with the announcement that Google was killing off Google Reader from the start of July. Indeed for many users (including me) the popular RSS reader was one of the main sources of keeping updated on the latest news. Yet at the same time it has become apparent that people’s online news consumption habits are changing with the advent of the likes of Twitter or tablet-inspired news aggregation services such as Flipboard
Clearly Google is of this opinion, with rumours it has a replacement news offering in the works. However, certainly in the fields of PR and journalism there is still clearly very much a need for the trusted RSS. For me it still remains the best way to monitor your chosen news sources on a daily basis without having to filter out the noise of social media chatter. It just isn’t as easy to find an interesting technology story amongst tweets about holidays, football and the latest celebrity meltdown!
Indeed being able to keep on top of the breaking news agenda is also a great way to capitalise on those important issues response opportunities – so I would recommend any one getting into PR that setting up an RSS feed (to monitor key publications, analyst houses, clients and their competitors) should be one of the first things they do.
So with the upcoming demise of Google Reader here are some of the alternative RSS services you can sign up to. (NB. I have signed up to Feedly which also has a couple of excellent iPhone and Android apps. It appears many other people have made that move too in the last month).
Interesting array of shop services
Some good Sky Sports proofing going on here
This looks like a cinematic classic and only 99p too!
May the face be with you (credit Metro) - one scary child!
Who knew Kate Middleton was a big fan of Rory McIlroy?
What I wrote for the Spark blog:
Excuse the Take That song lyric, but I was going to do a blog post on some of the best and worst examples of PR in 2012 but (a) that wasn’t very original and (b) Apple Maps was bound to feature (yawn!). So I was delighted to see that the PR Buzzword report for 2013 had been published, which was a lot more interesting.
The report highlighted the PR jargon and practices that inflame journalists and there was a lot of chatter about it online from both PRs and journalists regarding its merits. What it did highlight is that whether we like it or not, there is still a lot of PR bad practice out there. So it is understandable that journalists get annoyed, especially in today’s online world where they are expected to write anywhere up to 5 or 6 stories per day. From reading the report what is clear is that beyond the age old complaints about “have you got my press release?” calls, use of language does seem to be a big bugbear. It makes me wonder how many potentially interesting PR stories haven’t seen the light of day as a result of resembling a buzzword bingo scorecard. So the ability to pitch stories in a way that will interest journalists remains a key skill.
That said it isn’t all one way traffic. Lorna Gozzard, blogging for PR Week, has stuck her head above the parapet to list what journalists do to annoy PRs – many of which did seem to ring true from my experiences of PR. What is clear is that journalists and PRs still very much have a love/hate relationship. But if things are really going to improve for the better it really does take two to tango - then again we’d all have to find something else to moan about!
(Source: sparkcomms.co.uk)