Establishing and maintaining a business blog is unfortunately not as easy as sitting down and writing the first things that pop into your head. As in daily face to face conversations we can all be guilty of going off on a tangent now and then, and the same can be true of our blog posts. A little bit off centre this way and that can be interesting and add depth, but the most successful blogs offer a service and don’t deviate from that purpose. Here is how to keep your company’s blog on track.
Your blog, website and business will remain the ‘go to’ source of information, as long as you keep your end of the bargain and continue to publish useful content consistently.
UNFILTERED moments such as Wayne Rooney’s heartfelt 2.39am tribute to Whitney Houston may be a thing of the past for footballers on social media – but has the move away from authenticity gone too far?
Whitney has passed away. RIP u will live on forever. Cant believe it. I wanna run to u. Really cant believe this. @
— Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) February 12, 2012
As English football prepares to collectively turn off its social media this weekend in response to the ongoing barrage of online abuse – much of it racist – directed at those in the game, there is no denying social media is often a vile and murky world and that a collective stand is long overdue.
Social media companies must start doing more to ensure there are recriminations for those who send abusive and threatening messages and posts. They cannot remain passive when it comes to the abuse sent via their platforms, often from anonymous users.
But good can – and has – come from footballers being on social media, with Marcus Rashford the prime example of the power and reach they hold at their fingertips.
It is a shame, therefore, that more players do not use their platform to display such authenticity. The modern generation of players seem far more willing to settle for bland platitudes and dry “onto the next game”-style posts that convey little character or insight.
It was a complete surprise when AMBITIOUS was been named Best PR Agency of the Year by The Drum Recommends. This is the fourth year in a row that we’ve won, and we’re so proud that our clients have recognised our hard work and efforts.
The award we won is in the agencies under 40 staff category, and there was definitely had tough competition from other UK agencies. The Drum organises the awards to celebrate agencies and is one of a kind in the industry in how it chooses the winners. There are no entries to submit, creative to show or papers to write. Winning can only be achieved through the high regard of clients, supported by their ratings and feedback.
The Drum is a global media platform and the largest marketing website in Europe. Their Recommends database contains over 64,000 ratings left by brands, businesses, and organisations. Here you can find client feedback covering PR strategy, content planning, media relations, and social media. It has the essential ratings for performance levels – from effectiveness to value for money.
Companies searching for suppliers can understand what it is like to work with you and how you perform. The Drum Recommends is a valuable database.
Lis Anderson, Director, AMBITIOUS, said: “We’re incredibly proud of the team. It’s a real reflection on the effort and work that everyone has put in over the past 12 months.
This time last year was very different for everyone, personally and professionally. At times pretty tough. I know we asked a lot of everyone: they delivered. So for all the reasons this win feels pretty special.
We’re looking forward to an exciting year ahead, working with our valued clients, growing the business and expanding the team.”
For more information about our award-winning services, please get in touch.
We’re all different, aren’t we? Some of us need a tight deadline to focus the mind. Some of us just need a clear ‘to do’ list to work our way through and feel good about as we start to tick things off. Whatever it is that gives you the boost you need to get stuff done, be aware of it so you can try to harness it on the days the motivation isn’t coming quite so naturally.
I’m writing this blog on the back of a productive session – one more tick on the list before I finish for the day. I know I’m affected to a degree by the weather. It’s not warm but the sun is shining today and that in itself helps my productivity. Admittedly that’s a tough one to control but there are other things I know I can control that helps me to do what I need to do.
Make a list
I’ve always found lists helpful. I have a list for everything and if I don’t have my list handy when something pops into my head, I write it down or even e-mail it to myself, so I find it when I next log in. We can all hold a certain amount of information in our heads but when it starts to get overloaded it’s only natural that things start to slip.
Delegate
Sometimes we have to admit that we can’t do it all ourselves, so we have to delegate. This can be hard for some people but there are lots of tools that can help you hand over control gradually and in a way that you are comfortable with. Whether you are delegating to in-house members of your team or outsourced freelancers you can maintain full visibility of delegated tasks via regular communication, or via tools that are dedicated to precisely such visibility. Trello (www.trello.com) or Asana (www.asana.com) are just two examples of the kind of software that is available to help you manage your projects in the most efficient way.
Track your time
If you’re not yet sure which areas you need to delegate, it might be useful to track your time for a week or a two. We all think we know where we spend our time, but often our perceptions are wildly out of kilter with reality. It’s also very easy to focus on the jobs we enjoy and leave the tasks we don’t by convincing ourselves that what we are doing is important. By tracking your time, you might find that you are spending too much time in areas that are no longer adding value. And perhaps there are more important areas of the business that are being neglected.
Increase productivity
To increase productivity, it may simply be a case of being more mindful of what motivates us, how we spend our time and which behaviours we can adjust to become more productive without burning ourselves out. Or it might be time to delegate. If you are spending too much time on an aspect of the business that could be handed over to someone else, or if you don’t have time to do the things you know you need to do to drive the business forward, it is probably time to delegate.
Once you have identified the areas you need to delegate, you can set about delegating them. This could be to various in-house fractions, or perhaps to an outside resource. A company’s marketing is one area that often gets left when things get busy and top of the list of things to get forgotten, is your business blog. Smart businesses know they need to blog but getting around to doing it regularly is another matter. By delegating this and any other aspects of the business that you know you are simply not giving the attention they deserve, will free up more time to boost your productivity in other areas of the business.
As a small, proactive PR agency, we work on a mix of short term projects and longer term PR activity. Working on a range of clients and communications helps to keep us fresh and we enjoy being able to help fledging companies as well as large, more established businesses.
A short burst of activity can give a company or individual a boost and create the kind of impact they’re after. While longer-term pushes can build and sustain momentum as well as awareness amongst your target audience.
We want to position you and your business as thought leaders – trusted sources for commentary and information that journalists come back to time and again. The best way to do that is through a sustained approach.
Clients often ask what they can do to support that and the answer is quite a bit. We start with how they’re currently engaging with publications and journalists – including on social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter.
This is a good way to raise awareness, helping to amplify coverage and getting to know the content being covered.
These are good steps to take to help support PR efforts and get you even closer to the publications and writers that will be the most powerful for you.
To find out more about engaging with publications check out our post on the importance of working with local and trade press.
It goes without saying, 2020 was just a small departure from the norm for most of us. But there were a few silver linings peppered throughout the year.
Here at Proctors, for example, our video department experienced the highest growth we’ve ever seen. We’ve been moving into new markets, offering entirely new products and generally adding more polish.
So better late than never – yes, we know it’s a quarter of the way into 2021 – here’s a look at some of 2020’s more notable projects.
Cast your mind’s eye back to the heady days of January 2020. After months of planning and strategic plotting, we’d just begun to organise a full contact rugby-inspired shoot for Panasonic TOUGHBOOK. What could possibly go wrong?…
We’ll let you fill in that particular blank.
Not to be defeated, we turned to industry union BECTU’s superb COVID webinars and guides to get ourselves up to speed on how to plan and run a COVID-safe shoot.
Shooting under COVID restrictions comes with its challenge, but that doesn’t have to mean bloating up a lean budget. So, we set a small, tight-knit group to work. Clear communication is key, and after a quick socially-distanced scrum we formed a new plan: turn the shoot into a training day, and put ex-British and Irish Lions Captain and all-round rugby legend, Sam Warbuton, through his paces, alongside our leading Panasonic TOUGHBOOK tablet.
One risk assessment, a few tracing forms and a quick change into PPE later, we were ready to go. Shot across two days, we produced a huge amount of video content –enough for a full, multi-channel campaign showing how TOUGHBOOK and Sam ‘Lead from the Front’.
Fourth-best performing Panasonic landing page ever
Outperformed main TOUGHBOOK website
After getting to grips with COVID shooting, we met our next challenge: to produce a TV ad which would promote Daikin’s range of eco-friendly heat pumps.
This time, we had a number of parameters upfront: A list of features we needed to advertise, a total run length to the frame, the need to push content through Adstream and Clearcast to ensure it was TV-ready, a Mosaic profile of consumers to target, plus the need to make the ad look like it was shot in the winter months, whilst filming it on one of the hottest days of the year.
Oh, and did we mention we had just four weeks to turn it all around?
A solid team effort pieced the ad together in record speed: it was written, prepped, casted, shot, edited, titled and graded, ready for delivery in just under four weeks. The result is testament to our team’s perseverance and the great relationships which allow them to accomplish huge amounts, together.
Second most-viewed Daikin YouTube video ever
630,000 page views from 216,000 visitors
How do you make a film about software that’s akin to a Mary Poppins’ magic bag of employee training – without losing your viewers’ attention by explaining every last detail?
Bud’s training management platform is built to solve the pain points that training providers are up against. But with online attention spans sitting between the 2 to 3-minute mark, our challenge was to wrap up the platform’s benefits into a succinct, engaging video and encourage people to book a demo for more info.
Luckily, we had the Bud team’s great branding to work with as a jumping-off point. Their bold, clean appearance meant we could use some technicolour flair to design an equally bright and brilliant visual style. We extended Bud’s multi-coloured logo form into a visual suite of colourful geometric shapes and key lines which would simply and elegantly represent the simplicity of the platform. We then brought these shapes to life with various motion techniques and sound editing, interspersed with shots of the platform in action.
The resulting video echoes the vibrancy, enthusiasm and enjoyment Bud’s users rediscover in their work with the help of this all-in-one platform. It’s not just any old, animated infographic. It’s a masterclass in engaging video.
Bud have only just launched their film, so right now we can only wax lyrical about how chuffed they were with our work. But watch this space for soon-to-come results…
2020 was the year of video calls and streaming. The working day became a flurry of Zoom calls, Teams meetings, Skype sessions, webinars and virtual conferences – not to mention the evenings spent helping your nan figure out FaceTime.
But there was something missing: a way to professionally and consistently brand your self-generated videos, ready for recording, live-streaming and sharing. So we put together a video toolkit for our clients.
These toolkits pull some of the most commonly required and useful assets into one package; from lower thirds, to intro and outro sequences, title screens and transitions, along with a few extra, bespoke assets depending on what our clients need. We provide them in an editable format, so they work with pretty much any software you use, meaning you’re always on-brand.
They’ve proven truly cost-effective – both to produce, and for our clients to deploy. Meaning less room for errors (like accidentally becoming the world’s first Lawyer Cat).
A comprehensive Video Toolkit for Panasonic, Sanlam and P+S
Fully-branded virtual conferences for Panasonic and UKHO
2020 was a struggle for any business. But some services were hit harder than others.
Rather than produce our typical Christmas video of jolly japes, we donated our time and resources to local charity, Caring in Bristol. Their amazing work includes providing hot meals, shelter, medical care and support to people experiencing homelessness within Bristol. But donations often suffer during times of national hardship, so we needed to rally the local troops and call them to donate to this well-deserving cause.
So we created a film. But don’t expect your typical ‘pulling on the heartstrings’ donation message. We wanted to celebrate Bristol culture: the edgy, vivacious spirit of our city, calling our Bristolian family to action, and secured their much-needed donations in the run up to Christmas. But with COVID restrictions meaning we weren’t able to film the city and its people in action, we had to get creative.
We went full force with a script and art direction that entertained, with plenty of nods to local celebrities, inventions and fabulous quirks, while delivering the cold hard stats about people experiencing homelessness. Using graphics and animation to make the message as uplifting and entertaining as possible, we were able to create a powerful film which called for an end to homelessness in our city – for good.
Over £20,000 funds raised in under two weeks
60% of all social engagement in December
At Proctors, our team of videographers, animators, motion designers and script-writers have been making award-winning, show-stopping video for decades. And we believe each of our clients has something to say.
From the tech behemoths and the multi-international market leaders, right down to local, grassroots charities changing the world one view at a time. Whatever story you have to tell, we’ll help you share it with the world. Talk to Proctors, today.
I don’t know about you, but for a long time, LinkedIn was the platform that I felt the least comfortable navigating. Its whole demeanour is very different to other types of social media like Facebook or Instagram, and the content that’s shared on the platform is held to a very different standard and set of rules than I was used to.
Or at least it seemed that way.
LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful platform. Did you know that LinkedIn now has over 722+ million members and that there are 11 million millennial decision-makers on the platform?
LinkedIn is an important part of any business’s social media strategy and in today’s blog post I want to share with you the five key things to remember when engaging/to secure engagement on LinkedIn.
Though the platform is indeed much more formal and professional than the likes of Instagram or Twitter, that doesn’t mean it has to be dry. In fact, having a clear personality and personal brand is incredibly important.
Make sure your voice is clear in every post and chose a profile picture that truly represents you and/or your business. Believe it or not, it doesn’t have to be you in a suit with a white background (though of course don’t use anything compromising either – I’d hope that goes without saying).
Make sure your about section is more than just your job title. Who are you and why do you love what you do? Why are you good at what you do? Again, let your voice shine through.
Be honest. Share your professional journey. We all want to feel connected, and nothing is more relatable than having to overcome obstacles. LinkedIn is about presenting your best professional self, but that doesn’t mean presenting your perfect professional self. People don’t actually engage with perfection, because we all know it isn’t real.
I don’t know everything about the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, but what seems to be clear is that LinkedIn loves sharing native content. This basically means that LinkedIn is more likely to show a piece of content that originated on the platform more widely, than a piece of content that originated elsewhere.
If you’ve written a blog post, consider sharing it on your LinkedIn profile as a LinkedIn article rather than just a link. You can add a note stating where the content originated but it’s more likely to be seen when shared natively.
Like on any other social media platform, consistency is extremely important. If you want to receive engagement on LinkedIn, you have to engage with it yourself. Make sure you’re posting regularly. Don’t set yourself an unrealistic and strict upload schedule but think about how many times a week/month you could pop on and give your time.
Make sure as well as sharing your own content, you’re engaging with others. Comment, like and share content that interests you and is relevant to you and your business. LinkedIn isn’t about simply sitting there and shouting about how great you are. It’s not about sales. Like any social media platform there has to be a bit of give and take and you must demonstrate you are an engaged member of the business community.
If you’re having trouble thinking about what content to post, there are three categories that always go down well:
These are great go tos for forming content and are relevant across the board.
According to sprout social, the best times to post on LinkedIn are as follows:
Most people seem to check LinkedIn during their morning commute and on their lunch break. This is something worth considering. If you’ve got a great piece of content the last thing you want is to share it at a time when nobody is looking and have it get snowed under by new content published at the key times of day.
This is probably the trickiest of the tips to master as it’s completely understandable that your schedule might look different day-to-day. Try your best but bear in mind it doesn’t count as a fail if you miss it.
Now, it can be argued that connecting with everyone on LinkedIn is a valid strategy and I’m not here to dispute it. However, I would highly encourage you to find your community and ensure that your LinkedIn connections are meaningful. LinkedIn is more sophisticated than a popularity contest. Networking isn’t about having weak links with everyone; it’s about building strong relationships that serve both parties. Just like friends on Facebook, the people you add and never communicate with aren’t really your ‘friends’. Nurture your LinkedIn network as you would your immediate face-to-face business network.
After previously supporting NHS South West with video content to promote the importance of the flu vaccine, we were thrilled to be asked to produce a short video for the NHS’ “Every Action Counts” campaign — this time on a national scale. Aimed primarily at NHS staff, the focus of the video was “supporting excellence in infection prevention and control behaviours” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Using a wide and diverse range of NHS employees from medical and support roles, the video’s aim was to persuade staff, patients and visitors to follow good practice in Covid-19 infection prevention in order to keep healthcare settings as safe as possible.
The script reflected this, reminding staff that adjusting their behaviour in line with such protocols did not make them “rude, aloof or judgemental”. “Every action counts. So please don’t be offended if I keep my distance,” is how the video begins, before staff deliver lines down the camera relating to other workplace scenarios. The staff make it clear that, in the event they ask a colleague to create some space, remind them to change their gloves and apron, or refuse their offer of a snack, they are doing so “because I care”.
We delivered two pieces for this campaign; one for messaging in the build-up to Christmas, and one on a national scale post-Christmas. These were promoted both internally and externally, across both local and national NHS social channels as well as the main website. The video and its message was well received and our client was delighted with the end product. As well as the video, we provided a portfolio of imagery to support the campaign.
“Joe Meredith and the JMPUK team were a pleasure to work with and no ask was too much trouble. The short film they made for us was powerful and beautifully shot.“
– Anya Sitaram, Senior Communications Manager NHS England and NHS Improvement South West
“We are extremely grateful for the support shown at each of the trust settings when filming in what are incredibly challenging circumstances. The crew were diligent and we ensured we took best practice at every stage. Special credit should go to our camera ops, Alex and Rob, who really stepped up to produce some of their best work. I’m delighted with the results and how well it’s been received — excellent work from everyone involved at JMP!”
– Joe Meredith, Managing Director at JMPUK
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Winning awards is a wonderful way to earn your business prestige and recognition within your industry. Awards are not only great for PR, but also for team morale, positioning yourselves as experts within a given field and encouraging new business consideration.
But, how do you win awards? The truth is, no matter how great your business actually is, it all comes down to your entry.
Awards entries take a lot of time and energy; something that business owners and employees are often pretty short of. They can be frustrating and long, and ultimately, that’s where we come in. We can help you craft that winning entry. At Carnsight we’ve written countless and we’ve picked up plenty of tips and tricks along the way. Today we’re going to share some of them with you. Here are 4 tips for writing a great awards entry:
Before you even begin writing your entry you need to identify which award it is you actually want to win. Scratch the surface and you’ll find there are countless different awards out there in every single sector and industry and so it’s important to find which ones are right for your business.
This takes a lot of research and usually involves a lot of whittling down, too. Awards entries take a lot of focus and so it’s not possible to enter every one in your industry. It’s important to know which awards are worth the most to your business. Which one would mean the most to you and your business to win?
At this stage, a PR can help you by thoroughly researching the awards within your industry and creating a list of suggested focuses. At Carnsight, we not only work to provide a list of relevant and exceptional award opportunities, but we ensure we understand the entry and judging processes in order to give businesses the best chance of success.
As we’ve stressed above, entering for an award is a lengthy process which requires a lot of thought. If you’re a business owner or someone who works for the business, the likelihood is you won’t have a lot of extra time to give outside of the work you already do. Taking on such a task on top of your existing responsibilities is a lot and this is another reason why getting help from a PR is a good idea.
A PR will be able to give the entry exactly the time and attention that it needs and deserves. They can focus on the project and ensure that it is completed to the best that it can be without needing too much of your time as a business. Not only this, but a PR will likely be able to complete the entry that little bit quicker, given their experience in crafting entries.
This is perhaps the biggest area in which we can help as a PR consultancy. It’s often difficult as someone who is incredibly close to the business to see the bigger picture. A PR can help you to craft a story within your entry, telling the judges exactly who you are and how you got where you are today. As PRs we are skilled at telling businesses stories and it’s something we do on a daily basis. PRs know exactly how to get under the skin of your business and how to craft an entry that’s relevant, inspiring, attention grabbing and honest.
A PR will also be able to help you give your entry that special something. With vast experience, good PRs are especially great at knowing how to make your business stand out from the rest. It’s important to know what your hook will be, what makes your business the deserving winner over the hundreds of other successful businesses that have entered?
There’s no point in writing a beautifully crafted award entry that raves about your business if you can’t back up what you say. Judges want proof of your claims and you will need case studies and value based evidence in order to validate your entry.
It’s all very well to say that your marketing campaign was an unmatched success, but can you prove that? One of the best ways to prove your business is to demonstrate its impact. What has changed for the better because of what your business was able to achieve and how has it changed? You might struggle to feature the full results but even % are better than general terms.
You can find examples of our work in the form of case studies here. Case studies are a vital part of demonstrating what you can do as a business.
To find out more about PR can help your business check out our blog post on the benefits of PR.
You can also see further examples of our coverage over on Instagram where we share new coverage every Thursday.
Speaking to a journalist, especially for the first time, can be a bit daunting. Often we become all too aware of being recorded and of the significance that’s attached to each word. It’s easy to get flustered if you don’t fully understand the question or don’t feel like you have the perfect answer lined up. Talking it through with a PR agency or even a colleague in advance can really help.
Today we wanted to share with you some of our best tips for preparing for a journalist interview so that you can go into a meeting, on a phone call or, increasingly, on a video call with positivity and confidence.
The most important thing in developing your confidence going into an interview with a journalist is that you feel prepared. If you can, ask if it’s possible to see the kind of questions or areas the journalist would like to cover in advance. They may or may not want to share and these might not give you all the detail (many prefer off the cuff answers and discussion) but even some information will help.
You can also think of the kind of questions you might be asked so you can prep some answers, as well as refreshing your memory on any information such as reports or research you’ll need to know. It’s often helpful to write out some key bullet points that can sit in front you as a support.
This is important. It’s great to be interviewed but it’s also important to land some of your key messages during the interview. What do you want to work in there that would help your business and would be useful to say to the particular sector the publication focuses in?
It can be helpful to think of three key points that you can visualise as a triangle in your mind, but even one point about your expertise that would be good to come out is helpful. You should write it/them down and have it in front of you for reference.
You may feel you know what they cover, but be sure to have a good look at the publication your interview is going into so you can get a feel for what they cover. This way you can ensure what you have to say is relevant, and think of your responses in light of its tone.
Having a look at the journalists most recent work can help massively. You’ll get to know their voice and style, what topics interest them, and it can also provide you with reference points for conversation. You can compare and contrast, as well as getting a feel for the dialogue. Twitter is useful here as well as a Google news search.
Even though talking to a journalist might make you feel slightly under pressure, there really is no hurry. It’s important to remember that you are providing value in what you are able to offer. Take your time and don’t feel the need to rush your responses. Allow yourself to think things through as you would in any other conversation.
During the interview, the journalist will write down or record everything you say. Remember, anything they capture could be used for the interview so if you don’t want to see your words in print, it’s best not to say it in the first place. Unless you know them really well, treat everything you say as ‘on the record’.
If you want to share additional information that you’re keen not to attach to you, don’t do it during the interview. Instead, discuss it with your PR consultant or PR agency as there might be another way to share it.
Journalists aren’t trying to catch you out when they leave pauses after answers. Often people fill in the gaps and then say things they hadn’t prepared which leads to more interesting content – which is obviously what they’re after. So feel free to leave silences and let the journalist lead.
If you’re asked a statistic or figure that you don’t know and don’t have written down, feel free to say “good question – I’ll need to check that out. Can I email you back afterwards?” Don’t feel on the spot or you may make a mistake. It’s OK not to know everything immediately. If it’s really not something you can answer you can always say “that’s not really my area of expertise.”
The bridging technique is very important in dealing with difficult questions. For example, you could say something like: “That’s a really interesting question – but I think the key point is…” This will help you move on to something you’d like to highlight and can direct the conversation away from topics you might find difficult to cover. Remember, they are after interesting content, not trying to trip you up at every turn.
“One more thing” – it’s often the final question that trips people up. The formal interview seems to be over and before you say goodbye, the journalist asks an extra question that might catch you off-guard. Remember, the interview isn’t actually over until you say goodbye and hang up or leave the room. Be aware of the last question.
If you can bear these tips in mind during your interview with a journalist, you have little to fear. Often our anxieties are just in our heads. Entering anything with a level of preparedness makes a world of difference to our confidence so relax, give yourself time to prepare, and enjoy.
If you’d like some helping landing an interview with a journalist feel free to contact us here, and we can discuss how Carnsight Communications might be able to help.
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