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For anybody who works in PR and reads Private Eye, last week’s issue may have caused a few wry smiles (and possibly a few guilty blushes). The publication relayed a rather amusing tale of a prominent broadsheet journalist who, exasperated at the volume of “b******s” flooding his inbox, launched a scathing attack on a particularly...

Earlier this week it emerged that Yahoo’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, has banned employees from working ‘remotely’ in a move that has sparked controversy and re-kindled the ‘home Vs office’ debate. In a leaked memo sent to staff, Mayer criticised remote working for its alleged negative impact on the speed and quality of work. Highlighting...

If you are going to keep getting results in your tech PR campaign you have to try different ideas and takes risks. Here's one that we know works but you will need nerves of steel. The media round table is an event where you invite knowledgeable thought leaders to come and debate a hot topic in front of an invited audience of journalists. The...

Google rankings are critical to some businesses, not only as a means of being easily located but also for gaining online transactions. However, new regulations from the search engine giant have unearthed a multitude of SEO sins, and they are taking no prisoners. With Google’s latest update, Google Penguin, websites and blogs that indulge in...

Following recent new client wins here at Context we are looking to add a Senior Account Manager or Account Director to our ever expanding team… have you got what it takes? The ideal candidate will be qualified to degree level and have three to five years’ experience in either an in-house or agency setting. Experience in the technology...

When it comes to PR, it’s all about Christmas in the summer months. Once July comes around it’s time to start the annual Christmas gift guide lists especially if you have clients with great products that will make perfect Christmas presents. Making an impact in the months leading up to Christmas is essential and it’s all about getting...

It comes as no surprise that year on year, we Brits look forward to a week or two away in the sun, hoping to find peace and relaxation on warmer shores. But it would seem that packing a smartphone or tablet is also an essential item alongside our sun cream and shorts, because it’s ‘business as usual’ for many of us. According to a...

Vincent Van Gogh once said ‘Great things are done by a series of small things brought together’ so keep thinking of this if you ever want to analyse the importance of the infographic. We live in a visual society and images and illustrations have been capturing our attention for as long as we can remember. The impact images have mean that...

It’s the summer of all summers for Great Britain - The celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, (the lack of celebration at the Euros…) and of course the sheer excitement of the Olympics taking place right now (Go Team GB!) Summer is often a quiet time for any business but as predicted, the Olympics are creating an eerily quiet time...

It’s been a good week here at the Context office as we are pleased to announce that we have been shortlisted for two awards at the upcoming CIPR North West PRide awards. All the hard work that went into the submitted entries paid off and we are down to the final six in both the ‘Best Campaign £10,000 and under’ category and the new...

Many PR activities are tangible and highly visible, such as organising press events, issuing press releases for clients, writing articles and customer case studies, and so on. But one of the most successful activities – pitching a client angle to a journalist – is much more low-key.  It’s jokingly referred to as ‘iceberg work’,...

Great to see our client Team Telecom Group pick up another award; this time the BVCA International Impact   Management Team of the Year Award 2012 for the Midlands region.  These are the only awards to celebrate the outstanding work of private equity and venture capital backed portfolio companies. Apparently it was a great networking event...

The demand for instant access to information is greater than ever. “What would we do without the internet?” I hear you ask – Yes, with thanks to that ingenious prefix “www.” we surfers have found our Paradise. The importance of protecting it from the Bots and Bugs of cyber-attacks through good security practices is an (important)...

We have just started working on a new campaign for wishfree.com a social gaming site that helps brands to boost their social media footprint. The great thing is you get to win prizes and it's free. It's a bit like pass the parcel for the digital age but with several twists. When the game starts the rush is on to "grab" the prizes on offer. The...

We had a great day's training from Pareto Law yesterday. Thanks go to Lynda Broadhurst from Pareto who gave us some insights into what makes for good business relationships. So often the focus on PR training is just on the technical skills but if you don't understand what makes customers and our contacts in the media tick you can't hope to get a...

Our new White Paper “Crisis – strategy not panic” is now available for download. Please click here to receive your free copy by email. This is part of our series of practical guides to help businesses make the most out of technology PR.

Been reading a lot about the dangers of careless talk on social media and how it can damage brands and career prospects. Having looked at all the advice I can only conclude that if you want to take part in the modern world you cannot just eschew social media. You have to be in the game or you will just disappear under the radar. I think, when...

Our latest April is now available to download. You can view a copy here. You can also join our newsletter list by clicking here. When you subscribe to our newsletter you will receive monthly hints and tips on how to improve your sales through the effective use of technology PR. Every month we issue a new white paper and video around a...

Our new White Paper “Have I Got News For You” is now available for download. Please click here to receive your free copy by email. This is part of our series of practical guides to help businesses make the most out of technology PR.

In this month's video tip, Craig Coward explains how all organisations can generate compelling news. Why You Should Watch This... When you hear this from your team "We have no news" To view the video please click here.

Our new White Paper "Rapid Results in PR and Social Media" is now available for download.  Please click here to receive your free copy by email. This is the first of a series of practical guides to help businesses make the most out of technology PR.

This weekend we will be moving offices. Still in lovely downtown Macclesfield, Cheshire but in a new office development called Ropewalks. Oh the joys of a raised floor to help with cabling. And at last we will all be together in a single open plan space so now we can have those Silicon Valley style stand up meetings by the water...

In a comment piece on The Drum earlier this week, Gerard F. Corbett, chair of the Public Relations Society of America, calls for the industry to unite and banish "a preconceived notion of what PR professionals do" in the eyes of the public. Stating that: "In essence, we in PR admittedly have a PR challenge.” As someone who has studied...

The world’s biggest restaurant chain McDonald’s has been on the news agenda this week. Unfortunately for McDonald’s this wasn’t focussed on the fact that it’s creating 2,500 new jobs in the UK, but overshadowed by a social media disaster. No wonder they say bad news makes good news. By using the paid-for hashtag ‘McDStories’...

Social media offers the opportunity to research potential new business, keep up to date with the latest industry news, and find out exactly what that journalist has been up to whilst they blissfully ignore your phone calls. As any Twitter user will understand, you often find yourself following individual users that tweet on behalf of a company,...

OK, hands up if your belt’s feeling a little tight after the Christmas and New Year excesses…. It’s obviously a topic that is top of the media’s concerns if the requests we’re seeing are anything to go by.  There’s been a flurry of journalist enquiries for dieting case studies, plastic surgery stories and more. It’s the usual...

A journalist chum was moaning away the other day – bemoaning the fact that every other press release popping into his inbox is about yet another award winner. So what! I beg to differ, but quickly have to declare an interest as Context Public Relations crowed like a proud parent when client www.easyfundraising.org.uk recently won Computer...

It was giggles galore in our office the other week as we listened to a rather stressed yet well-spoken man repeatedly shouting: “Fenton… oh Jesus Christ!” If this doesn’t ring any bells for you, you are seriously missing out. The amateur recording of deers grazing in Richmond Park is interrupted by the man’s shouting, followed by...

Jeremy Clarkson is not shy about sharing an opinion or two, and his recent characteristic outburst has landed him in hot water yet again. Since his appearance on The One Show, the BBC has received over 5,000 complaints and the public trade union, Unison, is demanding his unceremonious sacking.   Although Clarkson has become a public figure...

I came across the following whilst browsing LinkedIn. It’s an infographic entitled LinkedIn Boot Camp, which provides some really useful advice on how to whip your personal profile into shape. It is essentially a basic how-to guide, but there are some really helpful tips that I felt were worth sharing. The author states that LinkedIn is the...

In the age of social media and quick access to the Internet, information leaks are becoming more and more common. In the last couple of days alone there have been two leaks – one reported leak from a City employee relating to Amazon’s smartphone debut with the launch a Kindle phone and another from Everton Football Club, who have...

  Getting to know your acronyms is like joining an exclusive club – you haven’t a clue what other people are talking about – but you feel obliged to join in. In PR (that’s public relations, rather than proportional representation or pilau rice) we embrace the use of acronyms. But maybe we should take a step back and consider...

Earlier in the week I blogged on the topic of influencers – or brand advocates – and how to identify them. In this particular post I wanted to take a step back, and look at the overall process of how you physically go about developing an influencer strategy, as identification is only a small part of the jigsaw. When engaging with brand...

Friday’s outpouring by PR agency Sorted PR – who gave a small minority of mummy bloggers a gentle poke - fuelled a healthy discussion about the merits of how to effectively interact with bloggers, and the role that we as PR professionals play in identifying those potential campaign influencers. Putting aside the fact that this was a funny...

This week is National Adoption Week – something you may have heard about following today’s announcement of David Cameron’s plans to reform the adoption process.  At Context, we’ve been actively speaking to the media about this annual event for several weeks, on behalf of our client the charity After Adoption, but what benefits can these...

Exhibiting at a trade show or exhibition is a great opportunity to meet the press, and an ideal focus for a solution launch, isn’t it?  It certainly can be, but it’s important that you approach it in the right way.  Let’s have a brief look at an exhibition from the journalist’s perspective. A typical trade show may have 50, 100 or...

The football world is up in arms about the apparent dispute between Manchester City and its troubled talisman Carlos Tevez. Whatever the rights and wrongs there is obviously a communication issue at stake here. It’s never helpful to have a public spat between manager and player, so what would I do if I were Man City’s manager? First there...

Just read an excellent set of guidelines from Econsultancy which sums up something that has been troubling me for a while now. Social media looks like a low-cost option for marketing but you really need to dedicate resource to it if it’s to make any impact on your business. We come across many companies who have had a stab at social media...

I was in a meeting with a client yesterday and they asked me how to get more mind share in the national press. The answer: “Be available. Stay informed.” Sounds simple but so many CEOs are happy to talk to the press when they have a major announcement to make but don’t want to spend time returning the favour by helping the media out with...

Half the reason stock markets are in turmoil at the moment is fear of the unknown. Michael White in today’s Guardian hits the right note, quoting Roosevelt’s famous line: “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”. If we can all get through the banking crisis of 2008 then perhaps we should wait a little before throwing in the...

Lucy Kellaway’s article in the weekend FT coins the term Worliday (work+holiday) . You go on holiday but you still pick up and deal with emails, make a few calls in the morning and head off to the beach for the afternoon. You’re on holiday but not totally off duty. For many self employed people this is nothing new but it seems to be catching...

You have to admire Wolves manager Mick McCarthy for trying to fight back the tide of social media in a King Canute style. On the face of it this seems a hopeless task but, as he points out in this Guardian article, he's not banning Twitter just letting the players know the consequences of careless tweets. A good example is that it would be...

Journalists are responsible for reporting the news; it’s what they’re trained to do. So is it really fair to prevent them from doing their job, because some high-profile celebrity doesn’t want the world (and their wife) to discover their dark secret? Even the Prime Minister feels ‘uneasy’ about the increase in strict gagging orders,...

There was a very helpful piece of advice issued by Mike Johansson recently, posted on the website Social Media Today, called ‘Why are you on Twitter?’ The article should be a wake up call to anyone who thinks social media is a one-way bet for businesses, or individuals, looking to promote their cause. It’s not just about avoiding a...

Creativity – the magic spark that only a few of us possess. A highly sought after trait, and probably the second most appreciated gene known to man (after the attractive gene of course). So why are so many reluctant to be creative? Creativity is particularly useful in certain occupations. It proved handy for Michelangelo and the Sistine...