Think mainstream, act niche

Watching BBC Worldwide as we prep for basketball finals in Barcelona this morning and heard "think global, act local" from three different spokespeople. With the world enjoying a multi-language chat-a-thon through Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, 'think global, act local' isn't just a cliché it's stating the obvious.

But like all home truths it's important to revisit and refresh from new perspectives now and again. Wordville's clients are often specialists or holding one off events or brands famous only to one audience. And it's our job to widen the pool of influence, break into broadcast and make it to the mainstream.

It always takes an understanding of the media targets, one by one. We avoid blanket statements to a mega-list of journalists who can't see the relevance. And we re-write, re-focus and re-pitch as often as required, drawing in specialist help as needed to help us shape the story, the photograph and the event to make media magic. This ensures we never miss a chance to turn the media spotlight to our client.

This approach gives us the opportunity to work with some great PRs - who know a particular geography or a particular medium inside out. These 'visitors to Wordville' join the town's growing number of citizens and have a lasting effect.

Alfons Pich and his team have been our Wordville Espana for the last six weeks and really prove the point. Interviews with all major Spanish newspapers couldn't have been secured unless we had found an angle for each of them. And that's not going to happen unless we focus on the end result and use a one to one approach. It's not the world that's getting small it's the opportunities that are getting bigger.

Population expansion programme – become a citizen of Wordville

Wordville has a range of roles to fill – Account Director, Account Manager and Assistant Account Executive – working on a range of consumer and B2B accounts.

We are a small energetic PR agency with an emphasis on work/life balance – we are looking for people with the right personalities to gel with our team.

What do we want? Not much, only:

- Someone hungry, but not so hungry they’d eat their mother to get on top
- High energy yet smooth as silk
- A real team player, friendly to colleagues and clients
- Able to relate to our diverse range of clients – cutting edge creatives, IT geeks, petrol heads, floral designers and leading business CEOs, we deal with them all
- Someone with a consumer background preferred
- A good writer and good at pitching
- Fluent in other languages would be a big plus

To apply, send a cover letter outlining which position you are applying for, what you have to offer Wordville, and your CV to info@wordville.net

Just shut up and tweet

Can a business survive in this world without tweeting? I don’t know, but they certainly can’t ignore the fact that everyone else is doing it anymore. There was a time five years ago or maybe even three years ago if you tried really hard, where you could get away with ignoring social media. But ignore it now and the experts say you’re ignoring a business goldmine. There are even people who have gone as far as adding to their business empire and leveraging their fame to sell their tweet space. Take Kim Kardashian’s $10,000 per tweet deal. We’ll that’s cash for comment and I disagree with it entirely. However, times are changing and tweeting is where it’s at right now.

For businesses, it’s about building brands and PR. It’s another way to get known and promote a business so it can grow and become bigger. People become more aware of your brand and you get more sales or clicks or enquiries or customers. Your business makes more money and it’s a success. In times of crisis it’s also a great communications channel – an instant way to reassure customers or clients of the situation.

Facebook is the same. With more than 500 million users worldwide it’s undeniable that it’s having an impact. And businesses are likely to benefit. Founder Mark Zuckerberg will never have to work again. He’s hit the goldmine that is social media. So if you’re not on it, chances are you’re missing out on something pretty big.

The modern, social world we live in is all about competition, and there’s a big chance your business rivals are tweeting their praises right now.

Don’t know what to tweet about? I was given some advice about six months ago by a mentor of mine which I’m happy to share – ‘just shut up and tweet.’

When PR goes too far

Kenneth Cole is packing his favourite pens after being enrolled in sensitivity school along with Groupon’s head of advertising. Let’s learn from them so we don’t have to join them. PR can go too far. There is a fine line (a very fine line) between genuinely linking your product or service with world affairs and making a link which isn’t there. It’s tasteless, and it won’t win you any fans.

Mr Cole would know. The fashion designer has apologised for his tasteless tweet where he tried to promote his new spring collection, using the unrest in Egypt as a springboard. "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online"

He later apologised on twitter for his insensitive comments: "I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I've dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.”

Cole is famous for being quick off the mark and has cleverly used world affairs to benefit his business before. After the Gulf oil spill last year he opened an online T–shirt store to raise money for the cleanup with shirt slogans lincluding "I Clean Up Well." After a plane landed safely on the Hudson River in 2009, he plastered a billboard with: "In tough times, some land on their feet (others on the Hudson)." He should have known better. But this is a textbook example of getting it very wrong.

Meanwhile a Groupon Super Bowl ad that makes light of Tibet’s political situation has offended viewers not only in China, but worldwide. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the thoughtless ad could stifle the company’s expansion plans.

These are both prime examples of PR being taken too far. The lesson here is that if the links are there, by all means connect them, but if they’re not you’re going to have to get creative and think of something else, or end up in this middle of a media furore like these two find themselves in today. PR is a balancing act - you need to get your message across but don't rely on connections that aren't there.

Why you can't have your cake and eat it too

We pay for a lot of things in the world. Almost everything in fact. What was the last thing you got for free? I’ve spent five minutes trying to think of the last thing I got for free and all I've come up with is a piece of cake my housemate gave me last week – and to be fair, that's more of a customer loyalty gift as my rent is paying his mortgage!

I can log onto a news website and read stories. That is free, as long as I have a computer and an internet connection. But not probably for long. Three of News International’s publications have already disappeared behind a pay wall – The Times, News of The World and The Sunday Times. The only one still available for free is The Sun, but by the end of this year that too will be a pay-for service.

When News Corp’s boss Rupert Murdoch installed a pay wall on The Times’ website, it cost them 66 per cent of their readers - a dramatic decline, but not as steep as many had forecast. The site had been expected to lose 90% of its traffic. There is something stopping me paying for news online. I am happy to buy a newspaper because I have something tangible to show for it. I can get annoyed at the newsprint in leaves on my fingers and I can feel guilty at the end of the day when I realise I haven’t had a chance to read anything other than client-related stories and the front page. Having worked on a weekly newspaper myself, I also know the amount of work it takes to produce the finished product.

But I don’t like paying for something and having nothing to show for it. So I will continue to buy newspapers, but I won’t pay for the same thing online. I’m not saying I will never pay for online content, but for now I’m not convinced.

When it comes to PR there is nothing like presenting a client with a newspaper clipping – it’s seen as the pinnacle. But why? Maybe it’s the newspaper print. Maybe it’s holding something solid, something that won’t change or disappear. Sure, a new edition will be out tomorrow, but you can keep that old one forever. There is a certain charm and traditionalism about newspapers that people just don’t seem ready to let go of. Will paid-for online content hold that same charm for our Grandchildren? I can’t imagine a world without newspapers, but I guess we will have to wait and see.

But if I want the freshest news from around the world, I’m going to have to face the fact the online news has become a product like a newspaper, in the sense that I will have to pay for it. A newspaper only gets updated daily – at best. I want to read a newspaper, but I want it to be the freshest news. I’ve got a classic case of having cake and wanting to eat it too – but what’s the point of having cake if you can’t eat it?

To check-in or not to check-in?

I 'checked-in' for the first time on Friday night.

People check-in all the time, I know it's not a new thing, but I am one of those people who are avidly against telling the world where I am and who I am with at any set point in time.

I don't know why I'm against it, I don't have any stalker ex-boyfriends who might be trying to hunt me down or anything exciting like that, I just think our lives are already public enough.

I had my friend's iPhone out while we were at a restaurant in Angel, and I checked-in to the Italian restaurant we were at, tagging all the people I was with.

When I arrived home some hours later, all my belongings were still where I left them. Laptop – check. Jewellery – check. Stash of cash kept under my mattress – I wish. Right, so no one had used the knowledge of my being out drinking cocktails and eating pasta to break into my house either. It looks like this check-in thing isn’t such a big deal after all.

But I’m still not a convert. If I start checking in to everywhere I go, what will happen when I want to have a lazy Friday night on the couch? Do I check in to my couch and face the uproar from friends whose invites I have kindly turned down in favour of a much needed night in. Or do I not check in at all and face the “Where are you?” queries from all my followers (Who are watching my every move, right?) So now there’s social pressure to attend the best events in town. Or maybe, people – shock horror - actually just don’t care where I am, who I’m with and what I’m doing. In which case, I won’t take up space in their news feeds by telling them when I’m at the gym, the supermarket, or when I’m on my couch.

A friend of mine has admitted to ‘selective’ check-ins. “I always check-in when I’m at the gym so people can see I’m being really good. But I don’t check-in to Ben and Jerry’s. Ever.” So now we’re life censoring, displaying the best and hiding the worst, making me feel guiltier about my night on the couch while gym bunny over here is slogging it out at the gym – for the sixth time this week.

Not many PR campaigns have tapped into location-based tools yet, but the fact that smart phones are quickly taking over means it’s only a matter of time before there’s a ‘check-in’ element to every event. Before long it will probably be standard.

So is checking-in dangerous? Or is it simply TMI in the social media-frenzied world we live in? Or is it the way forward? In which case ... now, how exactly do I check-in?

It's a 3-D summer - so why does so much PR look flat?

They say it’s going to be a 3-D summer – movies ‘coming at ya’ on the big screen and TV programmes that reach out to the viewer. But is your own company story being brought to life with such dimension? The first wave of the economic upturn is upon us and competition is fierce to get noticed. If there was such a thing as 3-D PR what would it look like? And how would it help your business make the biggest impact?

PR relies on:

1. great stories

2. great evidence to back up opinions of

3. great spokespeople.

Tapping into the media agenda is vital to ensure that your PR resonates and finds an audience. And prepping the content and the spokespeople can make the difference between blockbuster coverage and an empty house. We've made a commitment to work with all our clients in a way that energises their brands - whether they're marketing managers attending a Master class, or clients relying on Wordville to make a splash for their business. Will it be 3-D PR? Sit back, pop your glasses on and watch this space.