Four Swedish PR agencies on Holmes Report’s Top 250 Global Rankings

The Holmes Report has just published its Top 250 Global Rankings of the world’s leading PR agencies. Edelman moves ut two spots to claim the number one position this year at the expense of Weber Shandwick. Fleishman-Hillard drops one place from second to third this year.

Four Swedish based PR agencies are among the 250 top agencies on the list. KREAB Gavin Anderson drops one spot from 20 to 21, Prime International is ranked 49 (up from 52), Hallvarsson & Halvarsson is at 56 (56) and Diplomat PR at 159 (171).

Norwegian agency Geelmuyden.Kiese drops to 87 (78) and Pohjoisranta in Finland drops to 165 (117).

Full list in pdf.

 

Top 50 blogs for PR professionals

Bschool.com is an online resource for MBA programs. In a blog post this weekend, the site lists the 50 best blogs for public relations professionals. I’m proud that Media Culpa is included in this distinguished crowd.

Check out the list and you will probably discover several new great blogs to follow.

Image credit: Doktor Spinn.

Few use multimedia in online press releases

The Society for New Communications Research has published the results (see pdf) of a survey of the ROI of Online Press Releases. The survey is based on 423 responses from marketing professionals, PR professionals and small business owners.

Respondents said that both traditional media and new media/bloggers were the top two most important audiences they hoped to reach with their online press releases (given 4.16 and 3.88 on a 1-5 scale, respectively).

The survey also showed that very few respondents used social media release formats (26.3 percent) and even fewer reported adding video (12.8 percent) or audio (9 percent) enhancements. Of all multimedia elements, photos were the most popular, used in online press releases by 49.5 percent of respondents. However, as more and more social media release services are launched I am sure that more businesses and organizations will start adding multimedia content to their press releases when it adds value.

Via In Front Of Your Nose.

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“PR agencies are slow”

Last week I attended the Disruptive Media conference in Stockholm with speakers such as Neville Hobson and Kristofer Björkman. The conference covered inspiring topics from online video advertising to blog monitoring and strategies for social media. Fredrik Svensson from Starcom also held a stimulating presentation with five tips on how to succeed with social media campaigns:

1. Start to tell the story but let the consumer finish it.

2. Make the consumer your media channel.

3. Create ambassadors.

4. See social media sites as partners.

5. If possible, go where your customers are, don’t force them to come to you.

During the day, the topic of blogger relations came up several times and although most agreed it is not rocket science, there were many examples of bad pitches. The most telling commment of the day came at the final panel debate about blogging. Roger Åberg, from the Feber blog network talked about how they get pitched with stories. He said that PR agencies are incredibly slow, when one of the Feber blogs blog about a story on Monday, the Swedish PR agency sends a translated press release on Wednesday. In my opinion, these PR agencies demonstrate at least two things:

1. They are not tuned in to the new media logic in which news are instantaneous. When everyone is a publisher, news can travel the globe within seconds. Online publishers in general and bloggers in particular don’t “save” stories to the next day or wait to get the local version. Instead they pick up ideas from around the world and publish without delay.

2. They are not monitoring the blogs they pitch. If they did, they would see that the story is already out.

Several PR agencies were present at Disruptive Media and I know there are a lot of smart PR people in Sweden who get social media. But apparently, many agencies still have a lot to learn about blogger relations. And clients also need to realize that news are global and that there is an increasing pressure to get stories out in most markets at the same time. It is no longer, if it ever was, a good strategy to expect the local agency to get ink on a story that is already out in the prioritized markets. Geography based launch programmes are not as effective in a web 2.0 environment.

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PR executives don’t monitor blogs

One in two PR executives are not doing their job properly. A survey of more than 1100 PR executives from agencies and corporations in the US and UK reveal that 49% of respondents don’t even monitor blogs. Furthermore it says that:

“63% have not adapted their communications strategy to include proactive outreach to blogs, message boards, and other forms of digital mediums.”

Blogs are fairly easy to monitor and there are a number of free tools available. Next things to watch are wikis, social networking sites, Second Life, YouTube etc that need to be on PR executives’ radar.

The press release 100 years old

Via the India PR Blog I notice that the press release supposedly turned 100-years-old on October 28.

“On October 28, 1906, at least 50 people lost their lives when a three-car train of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s newly equipped electric service jumped a trestle at Atlantic City, NJ, and plunged into the Thoroughfare creek. 

That afternoon, Ivy Lee, who some consider to be the father of modern PR, created the first press release. The Pennsylvania Railroad was one of his clients. Following the accident, Lee not only convinced the railroad to distribute a public statement, he also convinced them to provide a special train to get reporters to the scene of the accident.”

About time then that this communications channel evolved a bit. The PR agency SHIFT Communications initiated a discussion around the development of a “social media press release” this summer. The thought was that the press release should be re-designed to fit the new social media/web 2.0 environment. I am sure we will continue to see interesting developments regarding press releases and other PR tactics. For PR practitioners, these are exiting times.