When I applied for a work experience placement at Democracy, I was expecting a fair amount of brew making, photocopying and answering the phones. The last words I expected to hear at 9 o’clock on my second day of the placement were, “Tom, do you want to go on the baboon shoot?”

Of course I did.

On our drive down to Knowsley Safari Park, Hannah explained the brief to me – apparently we were going to get baboons to launch their new summer 2012 pricing strategy.

Standing safely behind an electric fence as the Park’s staff laid out the sawdust and feed, I cast my eyes across the field toward the troop of over 100 baboons. These guys did not look like they were going to cooperate! A couple of hours later – thanks to the cooperation of the keepers, the photographer and the baboons – we had our shot.

Work experience at Democracy turned out to be pretty different, the team made sure that i got a view on what PR is all about, and although i did a fair bit of admin, I also went to meetings, listened in on sell ins and got a birds eye view (no pun intended) on what the jobs about …. and i loved it!

Written by Tom O’Rourke, work experience

If you’re interested in work experience at Democracy contact Hannah Lebon on 0161 881 5941 or email your CV to hannah@democracypr.com.

The comedian, W.C. Fields, is credited with the line, “Never work with children or animals.”

Normally I’d agree (hats off to the patience of teachers) but …. working with the animals at Knowsley Safari Park (our brand new client) has suddenly made by job even more exciting.

There is just so much to talk about, let alone the incredible opportunities with the animal images (I never imagined I’d have a ‘lion cub’ file), and it’s making post work chatter interesting as i share stories on elephant training, rhino roaming space, and giraffe feeding.

I am enthralled by wildlife facts and myths, … watch out folks, I’ll be the next David Attenborough before you know it.

A tip, should you ever find yourself face to beak on a bird of prey shoot – don’t wear your favourite five inch stilettos .. it can get a bit mucky!

Over the weekend I was desperately sad to read (via twitter) that my hometown paper, The Chronicle and Echo, is set to switch  from a daily to a weekly title.

 

 

 

BREAKING NEWS: We can confirm that we are ceasing daily circulation next month, switching to a weekly printed edition bit.ly/HC1w0S

— Northampton Chron (@ChronandEcho) April 16, 2012

It’s not the only paper to make the announcement this last week either, with job losses and protests over the last few months at titles as significant as Scarborough Evening News and the Halifax Courier.

Trustworthy

Regional news is vitally important. Surveys consistently demonstrate that readers trust local media more than any other media, and these titles are vital in keeping communities informed and united. There’s an emotional investment on behalf of the community too. A regional title is like a landmark and while I haven’t read the paper for years, living over 100 miles away, the masthead and the paper’s unmissable presence in the town centre are strong emotional hooks linking me with my childhood and friends and family still living there.

So what’s the answer? Regional titles are important but clearly not enough people are buying copies of them, but why would they when the Chronicle and Echo gives away its content for free?

Paying for content

For me this problem ties in closely with a previous post I wrote last week that argued in favour of trading data for online services; be prepared to pay, in some way, to get content. The new focus for my hometown paper seems to be a switch to digital output with an iPad app but where does this leave the older demographic that have faithfully bought the paper for decades?

A paywall perhaps that generates enough funding to maintain the daily paper? A paywall means the paper loses traffic and therefore revenue from online ads and citizen journalism is enjoying a renaissance.

Increase the cover price? No doubt the publisher, Johnston Press, has considered this and couldn’t justify it.

Trouble ahead

Regional press is continuing to go through a tough time and with job losses continuing unabated my biggest fear is for the community; syndicated news sites and the nationals don’t care about one of the country’s ugliest buildings getting a renovation but I guarantee every single Northampton resident (cobblers) cares passionately about the future of Greyfriars bus station. But with the status quo as it it is, how much longer will the community be able to find out about it?

Instagram was bought by Facebook for $1 billion on Monday and my twitter feed was immediately filled with tweets declaring disgust, anger and deep regret that the photo app should have ‘sold-out’ to the social network juggernaut.

Anger

For many the anger was rooted in Facebook’s precedent for buying up exciting and innovative apps only to take the team inhouse but dispense with the app altogether (see Gowalla).

For others, and this is what I’ve always found frustrating, the problem is the idea that Facebook is a ‘nasty’ network because it uses users’ data to monetise its services therefore users were deleting their Instagram accounts. This will no doubt upset many people, but i’m over the moon that this happens.

Our data is valuable and to continue to get access to free services we should be willing to trade on it.

It all started with Clubcard

Facebook is by no means the first to use data to make money while providing users a service. It all started with Tesco Clubcard. A revolutionary idea that has changed supermarkets, and commerce for ever.

I am not a heavy Facebook user, but I still have hundreds of photos on the site, endless messages, and videos. I have created dozens of events and groups, sent thousands of instant messages and direct messages as well as posts, pokes (in the early days) and kept in touch with my nearest and dearest for well over six years. Should I expect all this hosting and functionality for free?

Trading Data

It’s the same for Google. The search giant provides me with personal email, a browser, video hosting and video calling  alongside a dozen other services free of charge, at the very least I should allow them to use my data to help pay for it all.

I’m happy for my cookies to be tracked, Google earns money, I get free services; for my search terms to be monitored, Google earns money I get free products; for my video category preferences to be remembered, Google earns money, I get to turn my mum into a cat when chatting to her on Google+.

Let me know in the comments below if you think i’m wrong. Should we be more guarded with our data? Is there a better way to monetize these services that protects our data?

I watched Kony 2012 over the weekend. The video posted on YouTube by US advocacy group Invisible Children, had been shared by many a friend on my Facebook wall during the past week, telling me to ‘just watch it’, so I did just that.

Fascinating piece of propaganda it is too. If you are not one of the 80 million + who has already viewed the 30 min long film on You Tube, here’s a brief synopsis:

Jason Russell visited Uganda 10 years ago and ever since has worked tirelessly to raise the profile of the LRA- a rebel group led by Joseph Kony responsible for the abduction of thousands of children to build his guerrilla army in central Africa. After setting up Invisible Children, Russell’s efforts were eventually acknowledged by the U.S. government who agreed to deploy special forces to support the Ugandan army in efforts to track down Kony so that he can be brought to justice. ‘Kony 2012’ was created in Russell’s own words to “make Kony famous”, citing that as long as people know who Joseph Kony is, the US will continue their military support in central Africa until he is found. The video says it will only be streamed for 2012.

Watching the video you are encouraged to make donations to the cause, buy a trackable bracelet and on April 20^th take part in an activity called ‘Blanket The Night’, in which we will all wake up in the morning to find our cities plastered with images of Kony.

What’s fascinating is how the whole episode is now escalating. Jason Russell has suffered from an incredibly public nervous breakdown in the midst of all the hype/ criticism. Meanwhile, Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has gone on the PR offensive using the same social media platforms stressing that Kony is no longer in the country, bizarrely tweeting celebs including Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, inviting them to visit.

Regardless of your political view, thoughts about the creator, and opinions on the cause, it’s an extraordinary story to follow and an astonishing demonstration of the power of social media. Jason Russell has literally got the world talking- who could have predicted to what effect?

It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens on April 20^th. I’ll be honest, I’m probably not going to make a donation, nor buy a bracelet, neither will I be getting up at 3am to stick a poster up in Beech Road park. But I am now aware who Kony is. Objective achieved.

Every agency will claim to have passion. Passion for the agency they work for, passion for the clients you have and passion for the ones you’re keen to win.

Passion is the difference between a great idea, and a great idea that delivers results. A team member willing to go the extra mile because they want to and not because the agency contract included the sale of their soul.

Today TedX Manchester began with a forward by former Radio One journalist and XFM presenter Mary Anne Hobbs on how passion took her from Garstang to become one of the most influential music journalists in the UK.

From living in a bus for 12 months with a band and surviving on one bag of chips a day to begging editors to get her first break in writing.

Passion, often considered a puff word on a CV, is increasingly under valued and yet passion can transform the impossible dream into a living reality.

The highstreet and retail in general is going through a tough time, with high street stores and online retailers failing quicker than a celebrity marriage.

Retailers are having to work harder in terms of customer service, quality of product and audience engagement, to capture the imagination of the audience that they rely on to survive. Luxury products can’t just sit back and rely on their items, the customer needs to enjoy a unique experience to warrant the expenditure and budget items can’t just be about the price point, the market is saturated and people expect a certain level of design for their dosh.

It isn’t easy to find the next ‘new’ thing on the block for fashion where it comes to retail, but the campaign by relatively unknown shoe brand Miista has taken an existing model – tweet and the price will drop and given it a little tweak.

They are offering a bigger discount dependent on your Klout rating, (we’ll save the debate on the merits of Klout for another time) a clever way to encourage those with the highest influence online to get involved with spreading the word throughout their networks for the cost of a few pairs of shoes. The success of the campaign must have come as a shock to the technical department as the numbers to Miista crashed the site!

Will this approach work for Miista in the long run? Well, only time will tell, but if you’re looking to create noise about your brand, a hardworking, persistent press office combined with an engaging digital campaign is a good place to start.

During my time at Democracy, I’ve hit the phones to book in media visits for many different clients, from food to fashion. This week however, I got the chance to experience them for myself.

Along with the British Liver Trust, we took a trip to London to talk to health journalists about Eisberg alcohol free wine’s upcoming campaign with the charity.

Love Your Liver month is an initiative to encourage people to take two to three days off alcohol a week and to be more aware of their own liver health.

The campaign begins in January, so it was a fantastic opportunity to meet face to face with journalists, and to really engage them with the campaign. They loved our idea of a nationwide bus tour of pop up liver clinics, and even pledged, not without trepidation, to come and have their own livers tested when it hits London!

It was also good to hear the trust talk about the medical side of the initiative, reminding us how important liver health actually is, and how small lifestyle changes now can make the world of difference later on.

We had really great feedback and support for the campaign, and  before we’d even boarded the train back to Manchester, we had an email confirming coverage in the Daily Mail Femail, followed by confirmation with Women’s Own!

More importantly, we have developed relationships with key journalists, which we can work hard to maintain and convert to coverage!

So now I know; that’s what media visits are all about!

Waitrose, a symbol of middle England, has come a cropper.

Whereas their Facebook landing page welcomes you to their School of Christmas Magic; beyond this lies a furore of angry shoppers, all outraged at an incident which occurred in the Northampton branch of the store.

It seems that two shoppers had a confrontation in which one called the other’s disabled child an animal. She was then given a cup of coffee by Waitrose staff to help her calm down.  The original post read:

“I find it very sad that the management of Waitrose Northampton are incapable of apologising to a friend of mine as she was verbally abused on Friday 4th Nov because her disabled child was making a bit of a noise. The lady called her son an “animal” and her “Scum” but the management told her to leave if she wanted to call the police and then gave this dispicable woman a free coffee for her inconvenience. It is illegal to verblly abuse anyone and especially a disabled person. I am discussed and will never set foot in one of your stores until a public apology has been made to my friend and her son.”

After the account was posted on the Facebook page, the situation escalated almost instantaneously, with cries of hate crime and promises to boycott the store. A link to the page was quickly doing the rounds on Twitter, putting the spotlight not on the problems in store, but Waitrose’s poor handling of the situation online.

The main problem it transpired was that they appeared to be keeping quiet on the issue while still responding to inane comments – about the lack of eggs in store for example. And although a Waitrose spokesman claimed that they had responded to the original post, as the wall settings were set to view posts by everyone, it easily would have been buried.

Furthermore, as the page is moderated only between the hours of 9 and 5:30, obscene comments lay on the page and it was not until 1pm that they reissued a statement saying:

“Thank you for all your feedback on the incident between two customers at our Kingsthorpe branch. We work hard to ensure that everyone who shops with us has an enjoyable experience and is treated with courtesy and kindness. Obviously, in this case, there has been an incident that we are taking seriously and treating as a private matter with the families involved. We’re focusing now on investigating and resolving this as soon as possible. Thanks again.”

It’s a hard lesson to learn social media management is not a 9 to 5 job and if Waitrose can’t look after it, maybe it’s time to bring in an agency like us!

Google+, remember that? It’s still there you know, although you are statistically less likely to know it if you’re a) not male or b) not a geek. It seems mad to suggest that with over 20m users the platform is not considered a popular social network, but with Facebook’s active users amounting to 800m and counting only a deluded Googler would dare declare Google + a contender for the world’s most popular social networking site..

What I’d like to suggest though is that Google has contributed hugely to our social experience, even those of you who aren’t aware of Google+.

Something Borrowed and Something New

Quite simply for every intelligent Google + feature that seems to get good feedback from the community Facebook has rolled out something similar.

So Google has circles to allow users to decide what information they see and where it’s inherently an intelligent privacy model too. To match this Facebook rolled out various features including a Subscribe button allows you to mute certain friends without them knowing (just as putting them in a ‘ignore’ circle on Google+) . Smart lists were introduced allowing a user to see a specific subset of their friends, typical circles on Google+ have been ‘friends’, ‘co-workers’, ‘In the neighbourhood’ and ‘College friends’ and these same subsets are the default smart lists on the new Facebook profile. Importantly the privacy model has changed. Privacy settings are now inline with each post allowing you to modify exactly who you share each post with- you’ll never guess where else this exists.  Google +? Yes. The company made privacy a fundamental cornerstone of its product ( I blogged about it here), I’m delighted that Facebook reacted.

Another feature to have been borrowed is improved image settings. Given how huge sharing photos is to the community (not least to brands) it was about time the presentation received a little attention. Images are larger and displayed at a higher resolution, mimicking Google+’s brilliant work on the photo front. Alongside geeks, Google+ is beloved by the photography community.

Facebook’s blog details each feature in an insightful blog, although there’s no mention of where the inspiration lies.

Adapt and Evolve

What I hope is that Facebook continues to borrow and consequently offer an improved service. How else can they progress if there isn’t a competitor? The impending timeline switch is coming soon and once the hubbub dies down it will be a welcome feature that allows users (and eventually brands) to tell a more complete story.

The latest Google+ feature is the creative kit which allows users to apply filters to their images and ‘auto-fix’ them. With the popularity of Instagram, Hipstomatic and the new Flickr app it can’t be too far away, it’s my bet it will be introduced by Christmas.