Pinnacle Insights
McKinsey data show rapid social media uptake
July 4, 2010 | Written by Will Hardie
McKinsey’s annual survey of shows companies are adopting social media at a rapid pace compared to 2009, particularly blogs and social networks:
Also interesting to note is which departments have control of the initiatives. For internal initiatives it’s the IT function; for customer-oriented initiatives it’s Marketing.
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Word of mouth
April 20, 2010 | Written by Will Hardie
Word of mouth; buzz; third party advocacy — whatever you call it, enlisting or inspiring other people to spread key messages is a kind of holy grail for marketing communications. Third party voices are more credible and influential than anything a marketing, advertising or PR operation can put out on in an organisation’s own voice. [...]
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The social media effect
April 12, 2010 | Written by Will Hardie
Excellent webgraphic from the digital buzz blog mapping the flow of a story through social media.
This simplifies the dynamic enough not to bend the brain too much…
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Social media demographics
April 5, 2010 | Written by Will Hardie
Trawling back through a month of neglected RSS, I came across this study from Pingdom (via Brian Solis) finally giving some hard data to compare the age groups that use different social networks.
We all know the importance of segmenting audiences and choosing targeted channels to engage with particular groups, and it’s great to be able to [...]
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Online alerts
January 25, 2010 | Written by Will Hardie
Towards the end of David Philips and Philip Young’s book Online Public Relations — which happily I have finally got around to reading — is a useful list of things that a good PR practioner should set up as alerts (using automatic alerting software) so know straight away when something out of the ordinary happens [...]
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Thought leaders never say “It depends”
June 25, 2009 | Written by Will Hardie
I spend a lot of time most shouting at my radio and TV. I should probably get out more — but anyway, what had me fired up today was this phrase: “It depends”.
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Zooming out with the airline bosses
June 24, 2009 | Written by Will Hardie
“Zoom in, zoom out” is one of the simplest and most effective media training tactics. It is almost always easier and more effective to talk about concrete details and examples (zoom in) or the big picture (zoom out) than the middle ground, which is where hard questions and challenging issues often begin. It’s about reframing [...]
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No earpiece? No problem for a media pro
June 17, 2009 | Written by Will Hardie
Justin King, CEO of the UK’s third largest supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, showed himself to be a true media pro in a round of interviews today marking first-quarter results.
Notably, in a live down-the-line with Sky News around 0700, his earpiece dropped out no fewer than three times in the course of a minute, including halfway through [...]
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European Parliament election drive breaks new ground in online political comms
June 12, 2009 | Written by Will Hardie
“Swing low, swing right” is The Economist’s take on last week’s European elections. But behind the scenes and in the ether something much more interesting has been going on — at least for communications nerds like me.
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Junior dodgems make dodgy CSR but decent PR
June 8, 2009 | Written by Will Hardie
Tucked away at the back of Europe’s 11th biggest theme park is an interesting little bit of CSR/PR.
A little context for international readers: Alton Towers is a theme park built in the grounds of a fine country estate — all of the rollercoasters, thrills, tattoos, fried food and sugar highs that you might expect from [...]
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