The world of PR has woken up to the impact of blogging.
I had the pleasure of speaking at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ Northern Conference in Leeds on Thursday. The most popular workshop was Stuart Bruce’s fascinating introduction to the world of blogging. The questions confirmed that PR people are concerned that they don’t know enough about blogs – and anxious to learn. Stuart was joined by Simon Collister, another committed PR blogger.
In my keynote speech, I explained why blogging is such a powerful tool for consumerism. For the first time, consumers have the ability to create a voice for themselves in seconds. If the cause is topical, the traditional media will give consumer blogs plenty of publicity. The PR profession has to come to terms with blogging – and social networks such as myspace.com – if it is to give effective advice in the new media age.
My other favourite workshop was Michael Bland’s session on crisis management, entitled When it hits the Fan. Michael did a lot of media training for me at Eagle Star in the 1990s and has become one of Britain’s experts on crisis communications. His advice is spot on: think about what your audience wants to hear, rather than what you want to say. It echoed what I said to the conference: in a crisis, always have sensitivity for human emotions and be prepared to say sorry, we got it wrong.
The event was superbly managed by Don’t Panic – what a wonderful name for an event management company!
Leave a Reply