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The folks over at TheBestOf have asked me to run a social media workshop exclusively for  their  members.  I’ve put together a special programme to meet the specific needs of their members who:

Might have a Facebook profile, but don’t realise much benefit
Don’t have the time to Tweet or update Facebook
Think they can’t sell via Twitter
Think blogging is only for kids on MySpace
Don’t understand the rules of the road in social media
Are starting to get curious about how social media can help their business

Participants will learn:

Facebook’s primary features and functions
How Twitter …

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Image via CrunchBase

Industry analyst William Band of Forrester Research has published a great post detailing enterprises’ seven steps to success for strategising, selecting and deploying social CRM solutions.  Here’s a summary:

Initiate social CRM experiments immediately. Define a near-term opportunity to apply social CRM ideas to a customer-facing challenge at your company. Build some practical experience that will break out of your of old mindsets. Refine your strategies later as new insights emerge.
Benchmark customer and prospect social readiness. Survey your customers to assess their Social Computing behavior and attitudes. Assess whether …

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So you’ve set up your Facebook Fanpage and are running adverts to help attract fans.   Soon you’ll have a whole community queuing up to buy your products and services.   Setting up a Fanpage couldn’t be easier, and becoming a fan is almost effortless…one simple click of a mouse and voila!…instant fan.   The sales will be rolling in, right?
Erm…not really! You see attracting a fan to your page is like nodding to a stranger across a crowded room. You have acknowledged the existence of each other, but there is no real …

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The second edition of Exclamation magazine, which I edit on behalf of Bridson & Horrox, the Isle of Man printing and stationery company, was issued this week.   This story is my editorial contribution.
They say that when you laugh the world laughs with you and when you cry you cry alone.  But during these recessionary times this old adage no longer holds true. Bad news surrounds us and there are very few people and organisations are not affected in one way or another.
Being the bearer of bad news is never …

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Today at our social media workshop we announced that Strive PR is forming a strategic alliance with PDMS Limited to create the Isle of Man‘s premiere social media consulting service. We’ll be serving UK clients and those from further afield too!
It’s become glaringly obvious over the past several months that those professional communicators who have a solid web development team behind them are making great strides in PR 2.0.  I’m confident that together with the excellent web team at PDMS, we’ll continue to provide our clients with the smartest communication …

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On Tuesday night the Isle of Man Women in Business network held its launch event and more than 130 women (and two men) turned up.  I’m on the steering committee and so I was pretty excited, overwhelmed really, by the huge turnout.  Clearly there is a real hunger for such a group among women entrepreneurs and business people one the Island. 
The event was supposed to be a social, getting-to-know-you event, and that’s certainly what it was.  The noise level in the room was incredible! But the network isn’t just a talking …

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Some top PR blogosphere content from the past few weeks:
1. Kevin Gallagher has some excellent advice about PR and marketing for cleantech startups.
2. Paul Stallard has run an very interesting interview with Digital FT’s Peter Whitehead in which Peter discusses how and why he relates to public relations professionals.
3.  Here’s a very good explanation of the importance of digital PR. Bottom line?  Keep on with traditional marketing communications, but embrace digital PR at the same time.
4. With his PR Scorecard for Social Media Vendors, Jeremiah Owyang encourages us all to …

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Image via Wikipedia
OFCOM, the UK telecoms regulator has released its fifth annual communications market report, which shows people in the UK are spending more time than ever using a variety of communications and media services.

On average, Britons spend a total of seven hours and nine minutes per day surfing the net, using mobile phones, talking on landline telephones, watching TV and listening to the radio, up from an average of just six minutes back in 2002.

Internet and mobile phones have seen the biggest usage increases: time spent on PCs …

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I know we’ve been reading a lot about bad pitches from PRs these days. How about letting some bad behaviour from journos get some air time too?! If they want us to help them do their jobs, they should show a little respect.
Dos and don’ts for jounros if you want to get the best out of a PR.

Don’t agree to interview our client and then be unavailable at the appointed hour.
Do let us know if something unexpected comes up and you can’t make it to a call.
Don’t ignore …

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About  a month a go I’d made the decision to change a few things to see what happens.  I’d cut back on my volunteer and charity work, outsourced some admin, taken a breather on business development activity and refocused my attention on core services.
I could not possibly have predicted the quick and profound effect these changes would have on Strive PR. We’ve done some of our best work in a year.  Unprofitable accounts have been kicked to the curb.  Unproductive team members have self selected.  New business is flowing in.
But …