A rebrand is a-calling…

…and with that in mind, this will be the last blog post from KickStart Comms. It’s been a blast!

The newly-branded offering will be hyperlinked via this space imminently – prepare to be amazed.Well, slightly surprised at least.

We’ve developed simpler, contemporary, more cost-effective and measurable product-based PR and Comms for you, along with a series of E-books which will save time and money for those looking to side-step the traditional, high-expense PR Agencies.

More innovation, additions to the team including two National newspaper journalists, new and unique service offerings, plus an increased shift towards online-based service.

Watch this space – for a while longer, at least.

Story to tell?

In the best possible Karmic sense, when you give you receive. And although that may not always translate to cold, hard cash in business, this is the part of the KickStart Comms blog where we’re going to give you stuff for free – namely free PR exposure.

Got a story to tell? New business launch, product or service to promote, recruited a brilliant team member, won a wonderful new contract…? Anything you’d like to get out there, across our Network and out into the wider blogosphere? Email us your story!

Bearing in mind that WordPress named us as one of the fastest growing blogs recently, it could well benefit your business and give you valuable additional free exposure at a time when, let’s face it, we all need a helping hand in business. Our gift to you.

Let us spread your good news! Email your press release to us at info@kickstartcomms.co.uk. and we’ll happily post it on this part of the blog for you with our blessings. Don’t forget to include your company’s contact details, email address, URL and phone number. Whilst we can’t guarantee you oodles of extra sales, it’s a good start in pushing traffic and attention to you.

All editorial submitted needs to be of genuine value and readership interest: any sales pitches plastered onto press releases will be rejected – obviously. Real news, real value, and real benefits for our readers please.

State of the Blogosphere 2009 – read it and weep?

Not really, but technorati’s annual report makes for fascinating reading.

The state of the blogosphere – apparently we are taking it more seriously and bloggers are finding it easier to blog now with authority than ever before.

I would say this applies to the one-man brand bloggers rather than the corporate bloggers working within an organisation and not gaining the limelight, of course.

But, ultimately, anything which raises the bar for bloggers is, I think, a good thing. Great research from Technorati, too.

Good PRs need to embrace editorial redundancies…

…at least, according to this comment.

A thought-provoking post from Adam Tinworth on his blog recently which highlights the old-school thinking of some journalists who may believe they are entitled to an audience, by right of their position of relative editorial power in the media maze.

Not so, of course, and with the advent of social media and citizen journalism, combined with a significant cut in the numbers of trained journalists conducting newsgathering activities, it has fallen upon contemporary audiences to take their news where they can find it.

That and the fact that news consumers want information more rapidly now, and in a way which suits them, not the out-dated production and distribution models favoured by the larger newspaper and magazine publishers.

Good PRs also know that the way they deliver their client news to the Press has to change – and rapidly. What’s next?

Free PR – no catch, no hidden costs, just a karmic option

Try this for a freebie from PR deliverers with a difference! Bravo.

A PR firm with about as much use as a chocolate fireguard…

Re-posting this from the Bristol Editor blog, as an example of how not to deliver PR. Read it and learn folks.

…and the dubious award goes to these guys.

A huge thumbs-down to the PR Directors at PR firm Dada.co.uk today: following a mis-pitch yesterday on behalf of their client Whyte & Mackay, in which a press release on the drinks firm’s re-brand was sent to a printing industry-based Newsroom (ie mine) a follow-up email was sent by myself, asking the PR Account Director to remove us from their irrelevant PR issues.

Email received back, apologies accepted, we all move on and continue to cypher the 250 daily emails from PRs.

Or so I thought.

This morning, another email from a different PR Account Director at Dada, telling me about the wonders of how Whyte & Mackay are using Twitter to promote and launch Campaigns for consumers. Fabulous. And totally irrelevant. Again.

Many thanks to the second PR Director at Dada – this guy. He was too busy to take my call earlier, asking if they could actually confirm that they had removed our newsroom email address from their database, and if they would please, please, please stop PR Spamming us. Too busy to talk to the Press? Another clanger for a PR firm to commit.

So, in the absence of a decent resolution, here we are.

To top it all, Dada’s PR pitch on their site claims that ‘No-one can offer you a PR service like DADA’ and – for completely the wrong reasons – I am now inclined to agree.

Now pass me that chocolate fireguard, it could come in useful.

The link between Twitter and PR

Great post here about the link between Twitter and PR..and why PRs need to be smarter with their tweeting. Great stuff.

The worst PR gimmick ever?

This must surely be it – awful. Absolutely terrible. PR has hit a new low.

Free PR…read the simple instructions here!

In the best possible Karmic sense, when you give you receive. And although that may not always translate to cold, hard cash in business, this is the part of the KickStart Comms blog where we’re going to give you stuff for free – namely free PR exposure.

Got a story to tell? New business launch, product or service to promote, recruited a brilliant team member, won a wonderful new contract…? Anything you’d like to get out there, across our Network and out into the wider blogosphere? Email us your story!

Bearing in mind that WordPress named us as one of the fastest growing blogs recently, it could well benefit your business and give you valuable additional free exposure at a time when, let’s face it, we all need a helping hand in business. Our gift to you.

Let us spread your good news! Email your press release to us at info@kickstartcomms.co.uk. and we’ll happily post it on this part of the blog for you with our blessings. Don’t forget to include your company’s contact details, email address, URL and phone number. Whilst we can’t guarantee you oodles of extra sales, it’s a good start in pushing traffic and attention to you.

All editorial submitted needs to be of genuine value and readership interest: any sales pitches plastered onto press releases will be rejected – obviously. Real news, real value, and real benefits for our readers please.

Top 10 ways to win media attention – and keep it

Here’s a starting point: if I had to define the Top 10 things to remember in delivering good PR to the media, they would be:

1. Remember it is the story that counts, not the ego

2. The editor is not your pal, he is a media professional looking for editorial of interest to a discerning and fussy readership

3. Your PR will be competing with many other stories and news items hourly

4. Make sure you have something different, interesting and unique to offer

5. Get to know your target publications and media thoroughly before you make any direct PR-based contact

6. If your PR gets knocked back the first time, deal with it. Be persistent and take a different angle next time

7. Make sure you supply outstanding images with all PR submitted

8. Remember that there are different rules of media engagement for online vs. offline media

9. PR yourself widely, across as many sources, publications, forums, blogs, tweets as possible

10. Get ready to deliver consistent, month-after-month PR. One-off hits usually under-deliver