Our guest blog post from poacher and gamekeeper Jane Cameron, who’s a working journalist and PR, sparked an interesting debate on how good ex print and broadcast reporters are in turning their hand to the world of PR.    

Over the course of our ten year development at Quest PR we’ve hired a balance of experienced PRs with ‘commercial savvy’ and former journalists who have honed their craft to ensure our clients’ stories are placed across print, digital and broadcast media.

As a former Sky TV and BBC reporter, I find the importance of speaking the same language as journalists to be critical and picked up great feedback from clients who appreciate our media expertise in getting them in front of their target media.       

Former print journalist turned PR Jenni Moulson agrees that ex reporters turn their talents well to PR. Jenni says they think like a journalist (and not like a marketing specialist), can spot a story angle intuitively and can encourage their clients to think about topics that will fire a journalist’s imagination as opposed to what the clients want to focus on. 

As we PRs are only too aware, the importance of managing client expectations is vital – irrespective of whether or not you are an ex journo. Jenni’s example centres on a client who just doesn’t get why their networking event will never make it onto national TV, and how good  PRs always manage expectations to avoid compromising both the client’s and the PR’s reputations with the media contacts. In the case of cry wolf, says Jenni, if you try to railroad such a ‘non story’ through, you’ll have the phone slammed down on you straight away and be given short sharp shrift when you go back to them with a real story!

Like Quest, Victoria Tomlinson, founder of Northern Lights PR, has employed former journalists and worked with a number on a freelance basis over the last two decades.

Victoria says the best are the ‘rounded’ ones like her colleague Carol Arthur, a trained journalist with a wealth of commerciality compared to those who’ve come straight from the media and who are great at unearthing stories and journalist liaison – but who inevitably struggle to understand the broader commercial context of PR.

At Quest PR we’re passionate about delivering powerful writing with hooks and angles that hit the mark with our clients’ time and again. We’re also of the belief that former journalists (our MD Sharon Cain is ex Sky and BBC) and we have team members and associates who are either former or working journalists. This week’s guest post is from Jane Cameron who, as a former print news and business journalist turned writer, works on both sides of the fence.

Ask most people to write a press release and they’ll probably produce something of a fairytale. That’s not to say their piece will be full of fancy, but its structure is likely to be along the lines of  “Once upon a time…” and “they all lived happily ever after.” (Or not). It’s a natural part of storytelling to start at the beginning and finish at the end.

You can forget that if you’re writing a news story, which is what most releases should be. You have to wade in with a comprehensive punch line at the start and trail off anticlimactically, concluding with less interesting leftovers that can be chucked out by an editor short on space or time. The bits in between must be ordered exactly according to priority, with no extraneous matter and adjectives exiled forever.

Unnatural though it seems, especially if you’re one to spin a yarn, the point is that readers, listeners, viewers and journalists themselves need to hear that headline information upfront and sharp, because they’re almost always pushed for time.

Sounds simple, but of course it isn’t. Journalists spend years honing this topsy-turvy craft and that’s one of a number of reasons why it’s advisable to have one on or leading the team doing your PR. If the person reading your release  – from a newsdesk secretary to a trained news editor – doesn’t get it pretty quickly, your story won’t get told.

As a former print news and business journalist turned freelance writer working on both sides of the fence, I’m often asked what challenges I face. Well, aside from controlling the urge to be rude and nosey, I must watch that I maintain that standard of tight writing without the rigorous checks of a daily newspaper and within the remit of a marketing-led brief, often obscured by hyperbole and jargon. But perhaps the latter point is another story, or blog (as distinct from a news story, hence some use of adjectives here).

Share your views with us and stay posted for more interesting opinions on whether former journalists make great PRs!

Award-winning journalist Jane Cameron is the founder of Look Lively Media, which helps organisations get the right customers by getting their corporate writing right

With web explosion sparking a myriad online PR and internet marketing opportunities – do businesses still benefit from profile-raising through traditional media channels such as newspapers, trade and consumer magazines?       

Welcome to the first in a series of video blogs in which Sharon and Carol from Quest PR get the coffee on and respond to your frequently asked questions.

Send us your questions via Twitter and share your opinions with us.

If you want to learn how to produce your own video blogs, join our forthcoming workshops.

The phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” is not just true when communicating through traditional print media; it is also true in social marketing. From our leading position of delivering integrated PR and social media campaigns, Quest PR looks at how flickr has a great deal to offer in communicating your organisation’s key messages.

Flickr is an underused and underrated tool: it is not just about uploading pictures of your recent day out, family snaps or arty photographs. There are many examples of ways in which organisations have used still images to enhance their reputations or offer real benefits to staff and customers.

Events

Images from events can capture the mood of a unique moment in time and suggest a great deal about you and your values. One of the best pictures to achieve this was the CNN 3D image of Barak Obama’s inauguration – an image made up of photos taken at the time by thousands of people in the crowd.

Sharing ideas

Images can help in meetings, particularly when geographical limitations mean you can’t get everyone in one place or at a particular time. Brainstorm sessions can be saved and shared for further discussion or evaluations like in this example.

Project Management

A series of images taken of an event or project can be transferred to a location where the information can be accessed and/or assessed and utilised. For example, time lapse photography of a construction project could be analysed by key contractors to assess progress.

Also, take a look at how NASA archived the launch of a new rocket at their White House. has its own image stream to distribute images of important state visits as part of its PR strategy.

Gallery

Although you could take pictures yourself, you can create groups or areas where fans of your product or service can post their own images like Coca-Cola – the ideal endorsement for your company and its offering.

Archive

Over time images build up a story of your organisation. Some trivial image might tell a real story of how you have grown and developed. See how older images are helping archive historical events from the National Archives. Some schools use this tool to archive pupils’ work in order to compare one academic year group to another.

Innovation

It is not just the images themselves; additional information associated with them can be used to create fascinating results. Look at the amazing pictures by Eric Fischer who has produced images from geo-location tags on flickr and twitter.

By mapping the location of tweets and images, you can see the landscape of roads, buildings and rivers. Red dots are flickr images, blue dots are tweets and white dots show places where both have been located.

People search for information on Bing and Google, using images to either get more information or find out more about a location. If someone searched for your company or product, what would they find?

A clutch of new business wins sees multi award-winning Quest PR further boosting its talented team.

Launched by former Sky TV and BBC journalist Sharon Cain in 2001, Quest delivers integrated PR and social media campaigns along with media training and consultancy.   

Among our new clients are Contis Group, which provides online banking and prepaid card services to major global banking and retail brands, Montpelier Chartered Accountants and Strategic Corporate Finance.

We’re seeking the best people for our agency which has scooped eight business and industry awards and four shortlistings. Our journalist-led team includes reporters from key publications including Yorkshire Business Insider and is based at our own offices at Cardale Park in Harrogate.  

Says Sharon: “Our success reflects a wider momentum and confidence which is attracting new clients to us and seeing former clients return. Our clients value our results-led approach and deep rooted understanding of small and medium sized enterprises and owner managed businesses.

“We’ve also diversified and further extended our training arm to include video blogging and social media seminars to enable companies who can’t afford PR to adopt a ‘joined up’ approach to their communications. Our tenth birthday is an exciting and formative one for Quest PR.”  

If you are highly organised, passionate, committed, hard working and:

• Have experience of working a in busy PR agency
• Possess powerful writing skills
• Can pitch B2B and B2C stories to national journalists
• Write great blogs and manage clients’ social media accounts
• Can hit the ground running    

…then DM us @questpr and email a 250 word blog post explaining why you to Sharon@quest-pr.com or carol@quest-pr.com

Quest PR is delighted to be the only UK business included in the ebook Dear CEO: Letters to the C-Suite from Experts on Vision, Culture, Community, and Integration.  

The book, edited by public relations professional and business owner Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks blog fame, is a collection of letters from 32 business leaders who are experts on vision, culture, community, or integration and offers honest and practical advice to CEO’s globally. 

It features advice on everything – from where to spend your marketing dollars and how to build community – to creating a customer-centric business and integrating all of your customer-facing departments into one hub. Some talk solely about social media, while others talk about how to integrate the old with the new.

The first ten people to post their own Dear CEO tip on this blog post will receive a free copy of the ebook. If you’d like to buy a copy of Dear CEO visit Spin Sucks.

Our latest blog post features the ebook contribution from our Quest PR MD Sharon Cain.

“Dear CEO

“As a former TV journalist and ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ who has harnessed the power of the media to promote my business – and clinched awards to attract new clients and great talent – I urge you not to slash your marketing and PR budgets this year or any coming year.

Positioning yourselves as experts in your respective industries across broadcast, trade and online media is key to achieving standout and being a magnet for great people to work with you.

With more proven case studies of social media attracting sales and accelerating profiling and expertise, the companies who fuse their marketing, traditional PR and social media are best placed to leapfrog their competitors. This ‘joined up’ approach using powerful content across multiple platforms will win time after time.

“Notwithstanding the dramatic changes – including the constant advancements in technology that our extraordinary business world is undergoing, some things remain reassuringly the same in that everyone loves working with winners and being associated with success. A traditional and proven way to achieve recognition and new clients is to scoop relevant industry and business awards to delight your clients and stakeholders. You can then maximise your success through your PR and social media platforms.

“With margins being squeezed and maximum value for minimum financial outlay being the mantra of this challenging climate, ensure that all your team are strong performers. Avoid making the common mistake that many– including myself – have made by hanging onto the wrong people for too long to the detriment of the business. Get shut fast, review your recruiting process and ensure your key players are involved in candidate interviews. Also steer clear of negative people – they drain businesses as opposed to energising them.

“Closely examine your role as a leader and establish exactly where you add value. Write down your ultimate goals and constantly eliminate or delegate any actions that may distract you from achieving these goals.

“Finally, as tough as it is out there, don’t let important things such as putting something back into your local communities slip off the agenda. There is more to business than making money and running an

ethical business that donates time and expertise to changing lives and communities for the better can inject new life into both benefactors and beneficiaries.”

The first ten people to give us a Dear CEO tip in our comment box below will receive a free copy of the ebook. If you’d like to buy a copy of Dear CEO visit Spin Sucks.

Playing host to a student on work placement can be a very rewarding experience: watching that individual develop new skills and gain confidence in handling unfamiliar challenges. It’s generally assumed that experience in a ‘real’ work environment will pay dividends when it comes to getting a toe on the career ladder, but what does a placement really mean to a PR student. Carys Samuel tells all…

As a PR student I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told the importance of work placements and ‘real world’ experience, but it’s only now I truly understand the meaning of that advice.

Completing a placement year in London was undoubtedly the best thing I’ve ever done and it represented a real turning point in my career. All of a sudden the theories and models I’d been taught at university were brought to life, and I was given responsibility for media sell-ins and case studies. A placement year not only builds experience but, at the risk of using a cliché, it has a massive impact on personal development too. I think it’s fair to say that everyone came back to university in September with more than just new skills and media coverage!

To start my final year with an already extensive portfolio is a great confidence boost, not to mention a fantastic asset when looking for short-term placements. It also gives a head start on final year modules and provides a valuable industry background to base academic assignments on. I don’t know how I would have tackled a communications audit and competitive pitch without the knowledge of PR I gained through my placement year and subsequent short-term placements.

The PR world is addictive; fast-paced and exciting, but most importantly for me is the sense of teamwork and shared objectives. Moving to London on my own was pretty daunting, but my team at work quickly became not just colleagues but friends as well. I joined the organisation as a student and left as a PR professional with my very own Filofax of contacts!

Now in the final months of my degree, I’ve been lucky enough to join the lovely Quest PR team one day a week, giving me my ‘PR fix’ as well as some fantastic experience.  From day one I’ve felt at home, getting stuck into all kinds of tasks and becoming an expert in new and very varied subjects!

Which brings me to the end of my first ever blog post, but the beginning stage of my PR career.

Carys Samuel is a final year student at Leeds Metropolitan University reading Public Relations. Follow her on Twitter @CarysSarah.

As a professional news and PR photographer (I could be quite self serving and say “a good PR photographer” but I’m sure that’s not the bit you came to read!)

So what does make a good PR photograph – apart from the obvious that it needs to be in focus and correctly exposed?

For me the secret of a really good PR photograph is the same as makes any good news picture.

• It needs to tell the story. It must bring together the most important elements of a story into a single image and grab the viewers’ attention to make them interested enough to want to know more
• It should encourage them to read the caption and accompanying article.

Most PR stories seem to include three main important ingredients.

The Story- What or Why is the Picture is Being Taken?

Is the story photogenic – and if not, can it be made photogenic?

A staff photographer on a local paper was asked to photograph an old lady whose birdhouse had been stolen from her garden. There had been no break-in no property damage or vandalism. Some light-fingered individual had nipped through the gate and stolen her free standing birdhouse.

“How do I photograph her with a birdhouse that isn’t there?” he asked in disbelief.

The trick is finding another approach. Adding a lock to her garden gate? Holding armfuls of wild bird food she can no longer give to the birds?

The moral of the story… a good PR image is not the most obvious shot. The best PR picture will grab the viewer, stop them in their tracks and make them think.

Taking people out of their normal environment can also be a good technique. I once convinced three gents who work at a bank head office to pretend to play rugby in their business suits.

The People

News pictures with the most impact are usually tightly cropped and don’t contain too many people.

The ability to work with people is a key skill for good photography. Encouraging them to do things they may not normally do just for the sake of a photo (back to those pesky bankers!), making someone laugh and relax when nervous in front of a camera, spotting when a pose looks uncomfortable or unnatural and being able to fix it are all necessary skills to create good PR images.

Group shots are best avoided if possible, they can be uninspiring but there are always occasions where the story is the group. This means something creative is needed. Finding an interesting vantage point to shoot from or unusual place to arrange people will help. If it’s a large group, don’t think that sticking them in front of a great background will work because often the shot ends up having the background cropped out. The location in which the group is photographed should relate to the story.

The Brand

Photographically, branding can be a tricky little devil and from a PR perspective it’s the whole point of the story. From a publications viewpoint branding is advertising – and advertising is income – not news.

There are a few techniques worth keeping in mind for branding. When included it should be, if at all possible, in a way that makes it difficult or even impossible to crop out, but it shouldn’t be too forced or the image may not be used. You also need to be able to identify the times when including branding is not appropriate or ruins the picture. If the right people are in the photograph, branding can always be included in the caption.

Style should likewise be considered. A photograph that’s right for the local newspaper may not fit in trade press or in regional or national publications. This applies equally for websites. Not all websites are the same, and what works on a client’s Facebook page is not necessarily what will look right on their blog or their business homepage.

A truly good PR photograph will do a number of things.

• Grab the readers’ attention and hold it
• Illustrate the story by capturing all the elements in a single frame
• Connect the brand to the story without being too forced or contrived
• Match the style of the publication it is aimed at

Paul David Drabble is a professional news, public relations and editorial photographer with over 15 years experience. For more information see www.pauldaviddrabble.co.uk and check out his blog on www.blog.pauldaviddrabble.co.uk You can find Paul on Facebook, LinkedIn and @PaulDDrabble on Twitter.

Public Relations is taking a beating, and why is that? I’m going out on a short limb to blame social media (well, and perhaps those doing poor-quality work).

The echo chamber is amplifying and reverberating industry-wide on a global scale with anti-PR sentiment. Those who’ve had bad business experience with public relations are free to share it virally, with vitriol and unencumbered. Negative sells; look at the aisles of the U.S. Congress. The snark and divisiveness are great examples of what gets media attention.

I also blame our brothers and sisters who reside on the media side; pointedly, The New York Times Small Business Blog. It gave carte blanche to a jamoke to blog anti-PR sentiment on a global soapbox and, as a result, he incited an entire profession. (Sorry, no more links being handed out to this dude.) He’s not the only one; you can read many more examples on Spin Sucks; Gini Dietrich does a fantastic job in support of the profession, via Shonali Burke at Waxing Unlyrical where she recently covered the TechCrunch whine at a PR pro. She revisits the same topic a bit deeper March 7 here, on Spin Sucks. “Where is the Professionalism in PR?” Allison Development Group, that’s Erica’s blog, speaks forth on Where’s the Civility?

For all the value and positives PR people deliver (I promise you we do), there are louder and more publicized stories about the schlocks in the profession who lend a bad name to everyone. Then there’s how our profession is defined – I cringe when the Tinsel Town set says, “Call my publicist, and we’ll schedule lunch.”

People believe PR is strictly publicity; couldn’t be farther from the truth. Today, I saw a tweet from the ever-popular @JasonFalls who said something to effect: “I hate it when companies turn down free publicity.” I almost got into a heated conversation and decided to let the stream go by untouched.

As a result of much of the above, I spontaneously posted an article on my blog last week “What Is PR?” There were those who thought crowdsourcing this discussion was a waste of time and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) thought we’d been down this path too many times to count. Then there were those on the frontlines, the youth of this profession, who are confused about their professional livelihood. They’re in the overarching discipline of public relations and they don’t know it.

So, what’s a public relations practitioner to do? I’d like to ask each of you to:

• Be cognizant of this crisis of identity in public relations and strive to educate naysayers, clients, students, employees, and peers about the value we bring and to rectify the name calling (in particular, “flack”).
• Encourage a young person to join the profession that offers a wide array of opportunities across industries and sectors.
• Uphold the profession and wear it as a badge of honor. Do you know that we in PR boast skills that are highly employable and will keep us working beyond retirement?
• Take an opportunity to blog or do a workshop to set the record straight because we are a team that requires “global-raderie.”

Jayme Soulati is president of U.S. Soulati Media, Inc., a virtual public relations firm blending social media and marketing to effect business strategy. She blogs at Soulati-‘TUDE! and also at The SMB Collective. Follow her avidly on Twitter @Soulati or Facebook/Soulati Media.

As more of our fantastic Quest PR clients harness the power of video by attending our ‘How To’ video blogging courses or commission us to produce their vlogs, here’s another example of how video can boost your traditional PR.

This vlog celebrates the sparkling expansion of bespoke diamond specialist Stoners and compliments our traditional and digital PR campaign.