Is it serendipity that just a week after we blogged about how to compile storming award submissions and then made a vlog on how to shout about your awards’ success – that our MD Sharon Cain is shortlisted for The Women in Enterprise category of The Press Business Awards. The news is twice as exciting following hot of the heels of another short listing success in the Yorkshire Women of Achievement Awards.

We’d like to congratulate all those shortlisted and look forward to meeting the various businesses at the sparking awards ceremony later this year.

Finalists at a glance

Business Personality of the Year
Lewis Hull, of Noverre Ltd, Bishopthorpe
Kevin Hollinrake, managing director, Hunters Property Group Ltd, York
Carolyn Van Outersterp of Jollydays Luxury Camping Ltd, Scrayingham, York

Women In Enterprise
Louise Smith, The Jug & Bottle, Bubwith
Sharon Cain, managing director Quest PR, Harrogate
Angela Langton, director of Bellezza Academy Ltd, Bridlington

New Business Of The Year
Scoot Cycling Holidays Ltd, Stillingfleet, York
Snapshot Media, York
Synergy Cleaning Ltd, York

Family Business Of The Year
Nature’s Laboratory, Whitby
Tech Tyres Ltd, Osbaldwick, York
Mr Moo’s, Driffield

Small Business Of The Year
Wold Top Brewery, Wold Newton
RJB Couriers Ltd, Clifton Moor, York
Renovo, York

Best Employer & Education Link
Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust, Harrogate
Electric Angel Design, Scarborough
Firmenich UK Ltd, Thirsk

Tourism & Hospitality Business Of The Year
Superbreak Mini Holidays Ltd, York
The Grange Hotel, York
York Racecourse Hospitality, York

Science & Technology Business Of The Year
Extreme Creations, Harrogate
PureNet, York Science Park
Waverun, York

Young Business Entrepreneur Of The Year
Adam Thorpe, managing director Superior Stay, Harrogate
Ashley Mason of Yormed, York
Dario Grandich, of Snapshot Media, York

Best Business & Higher Education Link
Nature’s Laboratory, Whitby
Northern Rail Ltd, York
Appollo Creative, Knaresborough

Large Business Of The Year
Benenden Healthcare Society, York
York Racecourse Hospitality, York
Gear4music.com,York

Think Green Business Of The Year
Best Western Monkbar Hotel, York
The Hawk Creative Business Park, Easingwold
Scoot Cycling Holidays Ltd, Stillingfleet, York

For more information on how Quest PR can help you to build your profile through the power of awards contact Sharon Cain on sharon@quest-pr.com or through Twitter @sharoncain or on LinkedIn.

There’s no doubt that winning awards reflects your success and expertise.

Success is a great motivator and everyone, especially the Quest team, loves a reason to celebrate them!

Our previous post featured some great tips on award submissions – including the importance of research and supporting material.

Fast forward and visualise that you’ve scooped that fabulous industry and/or business award – and you’re over the moon.

Now over to Carol and Sharon on how to shout your success from the rafters!

Quest and Primeast shout about their awards success

• Are you frustrated when competitors win awards yet your business performs better?
• Do you get so close to the submissions that you can’t see the wood for the trees?
• Do you lack the writing and associated skills required to compile storming entries?   

We love to celebrate our own and our clients’ awards success at Quest PR  where we’ve won eight industry and business awards, four shortlistings – and reap the benefits of the media profiling that comes with them.      

As ex journos with great writing skills and business acumen, we’ve written dozens of award submissions which have won our clients prestigious accolades including The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For, Orange Business Awards, Institute of Director Awards – and many more.

Everyone loves working with winners and we were over the moon when Gini Dietrich and the Arment Dietrich team  scooped  a brilliant and well deserved blog award.          

Follow our 10 top tips to maximise your award entries:               

1. Take the time to research awards that most reflect your expertise
2. If available, read previous winning entries – study the content and format
3. If you don’t have the skills in-house, outsource the work to a business writer
4. Take yourself outside of your business and put yourself in the judges’ shoes
5. Summarise your achievements at the outset (judges may not read the whole submission)
6. Don’t be woolly with figures – spell out year on year growth, profit and staff increases
7. If testimonials are required, give clients advance warning to do you justice
8. If your work has been recognised/praised via traditional and social media, include the evidence
9. If shortlisted, get the story out fast to clients via your social networks
10. If attending the ceremony, go armed with plenty of business cards and network hard!              

Good luck and stay tuned for our next blog post on how to publicise your awards once you’ve won them! For more information you can contact me by email sharon@quest-pr.com, follow @sharoncain on Twitter and find me on LinkedIn under Sharon Cain.

We hope you’re all having as storming a week as we are at Quest where we deliver social media training, traditional PR, and media training and campaigns to small and medium sized enterprises, the public sector – and not for profit organisations. 

Meet our team of former journalists and experienced PRs who enjoy hobbies varying from cycling tennis, trekking (Harriet is on a sabbatical in Peru at the moment and we’re really envious!) and running. Sharon and Sarah are training for this year’s Great North Run for one of our favourite charities Henshaws. 

We’d be delighted to hear from you on our blog and to answer any questions you may have.

There’s nothing better than getting on your bike after a challenging week – finding a BIG hill to tackle – and savouring some stunning scenery and some well deserved nosh afterwards.  

I recently completed a 150 mile quest across the North Yorkshire Dales with fellow Vistage members and our team captain Richard Bosworth. I split the money raised between a cure for Polio and HenshawsYorkshire which provides a range of educational, residential, day-care and community services for blind and visually-impaired people of all ages.

Outside of this specific event, at Quest we have a strong CSR ethos and commitment to ‘putting something back’. Since 2002 we’ve donated hundreds of days of PR expertise and time to regional and national organisations including Henshaws Yorkshire, Candlelighters, and the groundbreaking WalkTalk project spearheaded by 7/7 survivor Gill Hicks. It’s been fantastic seeing how much our team enjoy taking part in projects which include making a video for The Wilberforce Trust. My next challenge is to be able to run 13 miles for this year’s Great North Run.

Now back to the bike ride. Here is a snapshot of our adventure – all donations gratefully received on http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/sharoncaincycle.

Following on from Quest’s previous posts on our video blog training courses and what equipment to use we’re now focusing on how to present great vlogs. 

Some of the tips are similar to the ones we give our clients in our media training programmes. 

Sharon Cain, a former Sky TV on-screen reporter, shares six top tips on how to prepare and present fab vlogs for your blogs.

1. It’s important to project well so start with some breathing exercises to get everything flowing  – they can include things like la, la, la, laa – you may want to do these somewhere private!
2. Check your hair and clothing and jewellery before you start – even if it’s just head and shoulders you don’t want people distracted by strands of hair sticking out or a tie that’s askew – or a necklace that’s lopsided.
3. Pick a great background – Gini Deitrich has set her vlogs against a lake which looked stunning.
4. Look straight into the camera if you’re doing it yourself – this is in contrast to looking at the interviewer if you were doing it for TV.
5. Watch your hand gestures – windmill gestures can be off-putting although it’s good to see a bit of hand movement from time to time.
6. When standing find what’s the most comfortable posture for your hands either keep them beside you or behind your back.
7. Give your presentation energy and exude enthusiasm.
8. Smile – you may even enjoy it!

With YouTube now the worlds 2^nd largest search engine with over 2 billion views every day and over 200, 000, 000 blogs in existence, the power and importance of video has never been greater. 

At Quest, we’re training SMEs and our peers in vlogging – now known as the video-blog and so called because it features video shots instead of text.

Follow our 12 step plan and boost your google rankings and get close to your clients and prospects.

1. Film your video on a camera that has an external microphone and always use a tripod.  Invest in good lighting and take more footage than you need.
2. Save your footage onto the PC to ensure it is not deleted off the camera by mistake.
3. Download Windows Movie Maker which is free and edits video footage very adequately.
4. Import your media onto the dashboard. You can also include audio clips and photographs.
5. Open up the story board and place your clips in the order you want them to appear. You can also add sound tracks and narrations.
6. Keep it short, creative and interesting.  Cut out any unnecessary footage – you can always put it back in. Remember people get bored easily especially with video.
7. Add transitions and effects between clips to make it more professional. Fade in from black at the beginning and out to black at the end for a smooth finish. Also add fades between clips.
8. Add a title at the beginning and a credit at the end of the film. You can also add titles between clips and personalise them with brand colours and fonts.
9. Save the project as you go along – just like you would do a Word document.
10. When you are happy with the film in its entirety publish it and save it to the PC. This is like making a PDF copy of a Word document – it doesn’t mean you have ‘published’ it anywhere.
11. Sign up for an account on YouTube.com and upload your published film onto your account.
12. Here you can tag your film for SEO purposes, rename the film and change the thumbnail image. You can also add a coloured border around the clip. Click on Embed to copy the URL for WordPress blogs.

 For more information you can contact me by email sharon@quest-pr.com, follow @sharoncain on Twitter and find me on LinkedIn under Sharon Cain.

We’re getting some storming feedback from business leaders spanning manufacturing,  leadership development and world class speakers who signed up to Quest’s Social Media Strategy courses.

The sessions spark some lively debates with videos highlighting some brilliant ‘viral successes’ like Bensons Beds employees Domino Mattress attempt and how a Dominoes Pizza apology went down a Tweet! Media guru Amy Korin tweeted her gripe to thousands of followers.

Our next courses are on Thursday 15 July and Wednesday 28 July. To book your place or find out more please email sue@quest-pr.com or telephone 01423 564192.

We’re also launching a series of video blogging courses in the knowledge that videos are 50 times more likely to receive an organic first page ranking than traditional text pages. With YouTube second only to Google as a ranking heavyweight, you can produce videos for little cost and maximum impact. Here’s how to get started: 

1. Get a YouTube account

2. Buy lights, camera and microphone and practice first

3. Rehearse your blog presentation until you feel comfortable with it

4. Choose vibrant backgrounds

5. Keep youp posts to under 3 minutes (remember we live in a soundbite society!)

6. Learn how to edit

I’m interested in your thoughts. You can leave a comment or contact me by email sharon@quest-pr.com, follow @sharoncain on Twitter and find me on LinkedIn under Sharon Cain.

Should you blog your way through a company crisis? Short Answer: Yes.

There are many different reasons for blogging during a company crisis, but the most important reason is that your blog is the platform where you can reach consumers directly. As an added bonus, with proper SEO, you may reach the top of search engine results pages for keywords related to the crisis, allowing you to explain your perspective first.

Reaching Your Customers First

If you have a dynamic company blog (and you do, don’t you?) and a crisis arises, the first place customers and reporters go will be your blog. This gives your company a chance to explain the crisis, along with explaining how you will be responding. This can put your customers at ease. In addition, it allows customers a place to comment and ask questions on your turf. You can tend to their concerns directly on your site, adding to their general comfort in staying with you as a company. Another advantage of listening to your customers’ concerns is a better understanding of how consumers view the crisis, which can lead to better idea generation and crisis management.

However, in the same way a dynamic company blog can help alleviate the crisis, NOT blogging can help to perpetuate it. The last thing you want your customers asking is “Why are they ignoring this?”

What Can Happen If You Don’t Blog About the Crisis

By not blogging about the crisis, instead of allowing your company to address it, you allow others to speak for you. If your consumers aren’t reading about it on your blog, they will be reading about it in other places. Not blogging about a crisis tells customers that you aren’t addressing it. Not responding to customers’ concerns can make it appear that you don’t care. These two factors alone can lead to an exodus of consumers.

In addition to this, with people reading and commenting other places, you lose the ability to respond directly to consumers to help alleviate their concerns. That direct interaction that makes blogging such a useful tool in good times, along with bad, is gone.

How Not to Blog About a Crisis

A bad blog can be worse than no blog during a company crisis. Nobody wants to see an embattled company fail to take any responsibility for its difficulties. If, like BP, your company plays the blame game instead of addressing a crisis head-on, your crisis may worsen. Finger-pointing doesn’t placate angry customers—even if you’re technically correct. Don’t blog until you’ve cooled down and are prepared to offer something that won’t come off as tone-deaf arrogance.

Where SEO Comes Into Play

If you address your company crisis using an SEO-optimized company blog, you stand a good chance of being the first result for web searches relating to the crisis. This allows anyone searching directly for your company and the crisis to land at your blog first, bringing the ball back into your court. When you are in crisis, it’s important to take control, not bury your head in the sand. Your blog – a great public relations tool during the good times – can be your lifeline during a bumpy patch on your business’s journey.

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, an online leader in affordable press release distribution. Grab a free copy of the Big Press Release Book – Press Releases for Every Occasion and Industry. Mickie’s blog, PR Fuel, covers PR and social media and is updated every weekday.

An increasing number of businesses are harnessing the power of Social Media to drive sales, open doors and position themselves as experts.

If your clients and prospects are engaging with their audiences through tools such as blogs, LinkedIn and Twitter and you’re not – your ‘Social Media savvy’ competitors will steal a march.

As more of Quest’s delivery centres on consulting on Social Media strategy, managing blogs and training companies how to present, film and edit videos for their websites and blogs, we always advise our clients to listen before launching.

Use tools such as Google alerts to find out who is saying what about your brand, your industry and your competitors. This intelligence gathering will steer you to the right tools.

Then decide who to engage with, establishing different messages for different audiences. As ‘Content is King’, produce ‘killer content’ to achieve stand out.

To launch a B2B Social Media campaign that accelerates your traditional PR programme, follow this 12-step plan for maximum impact:

1. Intelligence gather via Google alerts and tools
2. Establish content plan for blog
3. Establish blogging team and arrange training in making blog videos
4. Set up LinkedIn profile, contacts and testimonials
5. Launch twitter and build followers
6. Launch blog with six posts and two videos (Google loves video)
7. Feed blog content to journalists
8. Use blog content to drive LinkedIn discussions
9. Use Twitter to ‘Tweet’ blog content
10. Use blog content for marketing activities (e-shots etc)
11. Measure ROI via SEO/Social Media platforms
12. Sustain the killer content and momentum

As more journalists seek out interviewees from company blogs and Linkedin profiles, Social Media – when executed properly – will turbo charge your marketing campaign. See www.questblog.com on how it is boosting companies’ bottom lines.

CONTACT
T 01423 564192
E  Sharon@quest-pr.com
www.quest-pr.com, www.questprblog.com, follow us on LinkedIn (Sharon Cain) or @SharonCain and @QuestPR on Twitter.