Category: Public Relations (page 5 of 17)

21 June 2012 / 0 Comments

CIPR TV: Wikipedia guidance to PR practitioners to be published next week

I swapped sofas on CIPR TV yesterday, seeing the studio from the guests' perspective for a change. Gemma Griffiths presented the show and David Gerrard and I were the guests.

David is Wikimedia UK's volunteer spokesperson. As you may know, I've been helping to lead a dialogue between Wikimedia UK and the CIPR to build mutual understanding, and specifically to co-develop definitive guidance to PR practitioners on how to engage with the Wikipedia community.

If you're in public relations or have an interest in brand reputation and you don't consider yourself expert in the wheres and whyfores of Wikipedia, do take the time to watch the show. I think it's an excellent introduction to the guidance, version 1 of which is due out next week.

Reputation and Wikipedia

Reputation and Wikipedia, part II

15 June 2012 / 1 Comment

Influence – the use and abuse of the word in social media

Influence – the use and abuse of the word in social media from Philip Sheldrake

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The AMEC European Summit is taking place this week in Dublin. It's a really vibrant event, a credit to AMEC's Barry Leggetter and the delegates' enthusiasm. (Actually, perhaps it's a little less vibrant this morning after the visit last night to the Guiness brewery!)

I'm here representing the CIPR in a couple of sessions, and this morning I'm speaking in my own capacity... my slidestack is embedded above.

It's an old theme of mine, the misrepresentation of the idea of influence, and the stack I presented on the topic back in March 2010 has now been viewed some thirteen and a half thousand times – Influence, the bullshit, best practice and promise. It's now 2012 and I feel that we're starting to make some progress towards addressing the complexity of the business of influence. Onwards and upwards.

6 June 2012 / 0 Comments

Q&A with Influencer Marketing Review

[Originally published by Influencer Marketing Review.]

This is the third installment of our ‘Q&A with the Review’ series in which we talk with prominent members of the influencer marketing community about their work and thoughts on the industry. Amanda Maksymiw and Duncan Brown helped us get the series started, and now we’re grateful that Philip Sheldrake, author of The Business of Influence, is joining us for our third Q&A.

IMR: Thanks so much for joining us, Philip. And congratulations on the book. We know that’s no easy feat.

Philip: Thanks for the invitation to chat here. And thanks for having my book cover on IMR’s homepage :-)

IMR: Oh yeah. It’s probably about time we change the image, huh.

You’ve stated in the book and elsewhere that “the business of influence is broken.” What do you mean by that exactly? Some might think there wasn’t much of a “business of influence” in the first place.

Philip: A definition of influence: you have been influenced when you do something you wouldn’t otherwise have done, or think something you wouldn’t otherwise have thought. There’s influence in everything an organization does, and sometimes in what it doesn’t do, and yet despite this we often apportion responsibility for influence to marketing and PR departments. The 2012 organization looks incredibly similar to the 1992 organization, which is crazy when you consider the impact of social media and related information technologies.

20 May 2012 / 0 Comments

CIPR TV on ethics

This week's CIPR TV addressed the topic of ethics, and 'spin'. Joining me in the studio were Eliane Glaser, Guardian columnist and author of Get Real: How to tell it like it is in a world of illusions (Amazon, Waterstones), and Dr Jon White, PR consultant, strategist, and author of the CIPR's PR2020 report (PDF).

It appears the world of public relations has a reputation problem. It's almost schizophrenic, with one camp entrenched in persuasive 'spin', or perhaps publicity, and the other in working towards open, transparent, mutual understanding between the organisation and stakeholders. Max Clifford for example, whilst often introduced by the British mass media as a PR consultant, is actually a publicist; a distinction indeed that the Wikipedia community is able to make at the time of writing.

It's a fascinating topic and we had a lot of ground to cover in 20 minutes. Hit play and find out more.

14 May 2012 / 2 Comments

Reputation and Wikipedia, part II

The public relations profession and Wikipedia community have not enjoyed a productive relationship to date; antagonistic may be a more accurate adjective. For a quick overview of this situation, do take a look at my January 6th post, Reputation and Wikipedia.

For my part, I think I understand both parties' points of view and see no reason why good public relations practice (the planned and sustained effort to influence opinion and behaviour, and to be influenced similarly, in order to build mutual understanding and goodwill) shouldn't be employed to build bridges here.

CREWE

The Facebook group, Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement, has quite rightly stirred the pot, raising the profile of the issues involved. For those who practice public relations according to the definition in brackets above, Wikipedia can appear a frustrating community to work with. One asks: "Why, if I know facts on Wikipedia entries relating to my organisation / client are incorrect, can't I jump in and correct them?" There are two answers to that, but firstly an update on that process of building bridges.

CIPR Guidance

PR Week's Editor in Chief, Danny Rogers, called on the CIPR to clarify its guidance to members, and the profession more widely, on 18th January 2012 ("CIPR must set bar high on Wikipedia code"). Fortunately, the CIPR Social Media panel had already got its heads together to review the situation.

22 April 2012 / 6 Comments

‘Earned media’ is not a synonym for public relations

British Heart Foundation outdoor ad, Leo Reynolds, http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/2138006896

"Categorising media as Paid, Owned and Earned isn’t particularly useful. In fact, it simply appears to reinforce increasingly irrelevant functional silos."

That's how I opened a blog post back in November, The Influence View of Content, and three incidents over the last couple of weeks have redoubled my determination to cut this crap.

Names have been changed...

Incident 1

Anne: "So our marketing team looks after the website, the blog and Facebook. And PR is obviously earned media – the traditional media relations, blogger relations and the like. They cover Twitter too, at least most of the time."

Me: "So if we're looking at things like that, let me ask where the concept of shared media takes us... the owned stuff that has earned a share – a 'Like', a RT, a +1 for example." Read more

2 April 2012 / 0 Comments

The Business of Influence for REALLY BIG Digital Impact

Here's my slidestack for PRSA Digital Impact Conference (#PRSADiConf) today.

I hope it goes without saying that I'm happy to answer any questions this stack or my presentation today may raise, or just have a chat in general. Always my pleasure. My contact details are always easy to find on philipsheldrake.com.

Thanks of course to the PRSA team for the opportunity.

PRSA Digital Impact Conference April 2012

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2 April 2012 / 1 Comment

The REALLY BIG Digital Impact, at #PRSADiConf

PRSA Digital Impact Conference

I'm in New York today at the PRSA's Digital Impact Conference. In fact, I get the opportunity to present at 2.30pm this afternoon, and I'm really looking forward to it.

And the more I think about the conference title, Digital Impact, the more I've come to recognise that my presentation has two main thrusts...

First, most organisations don't yet feel the digital impact of 2012 fully. They haven't yet wholly adapted to today's social media and digital technologies.

Second, we haven't seen anything yet! The rate of change over the next five years will make the last five look like we were taking our sweet time. And that's what fascinates me and informs my presentation. This is the REALLY BIG digital impact!

When I presented at Dreamforce in San Francisco last year, the dominant phrase amongst delegates was Socialize the Enterprise. It's now time to make that happen, and I'm hoping we'll have a great #PRSADiConf dialogue this afternoon.