activevents

Be a Master of ‘New Media’ technologies…

The third ‘sold-out’ session on ‘New Media for Old Hands – Have you been left behind?’ Masterclass, was held this Thursday and again, it was a resounding success and received extremely positive feedback from delegates who attended and benefited.

Amongst the group of ‘old hands’ who are keen to keep up with the younger generation and also learn about the latest technology is Masterclass delegate, Mark Clare, FCIPR FRSA, Managing Director of Clear CMS Ltd. Mark attended the first session of this new masterclass series and found it particularly enjoyable and useful to his work:

“Incidentally, this course was really very good, Neville is one of the best trainers I have had the pleasure to listen to and he really does seem to be totally on top of his subject – would really recommend to others“

With a current waiting list on hand, these popular sessions are certain to make a comeback in Autumn/Winter. So, keep a look out for the new date at www.cipr.co.uk/masterclass and you too, can become a master of the New Media technologies!

Increasingly, top management people have used their blogs as a media tool to reach out to their fellow-colleagues and business customers. Many CEOs of multinationals such as Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems (http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/), have earned a cult following and become media celebrities as a result of their blogs. The CIPR 'How to Blog’ Masterclass on 7 July would be a very good follow-up for those who had attended the previous New Media sessions and/or aspire to use blogging as a PR tool for their PR campaign.

A full day basic level ‘Introduction to Social Media’ workshop on 19 June is also available at the CIPR for ‘new hands’ who are relatively new to the industry and/or anyone who would like to gain a complete overview of the subject. www.cipr.co.uk/workshops

Above all, if you are looking for something that provides a snappy insight into the New Media topics but are hard-pressed for time, the Freshly Squeezed ‘New Media Communications’ breakfast briefing on 17 June in London and 28 October in Scotland, will be the ideal training for you. www.cipr.co.uk/fresh

For further information on training and development, please visit www.cipr.co.uk/training

Choo-Li Tan, Training Development Officer

Social media on the table

Well-known PR blogger and social media expert David Phillips of Internet Services Ltd opened the discussions at this morning’s senior practitioner breakfast roundtable on social media by talking about the growth of interactive media. While the traditional media such as newspapers continue to lose readers and advertising revenue, social media offers an increasing number of ‘eyeball opportunities’ said Phillips.

Practitioners need to think about how they ‘package’ their stories and should be producing new media releases, as opposed to the more usual variety that are emailed or mailed. What makes new media releases different is that they contain a hyperlink to online information, and both the release itself and online content – down to the number of words, visuals and audio they use – are structured for immediate use by the media – e.g. internet, blog, podcast, videocast can all be used to get the message across.

‘The media is the message’ argued Phillips, and early adopters of the technology will benefit from the opportunities and a whole new array of communication platforms.

Opening up the topic for discussion, participants talked about how PR practitioners bridge the gap between existing and social media and take their stakeholders with them; how they will need to keep pace with the evolution of ‘push technology’ or risk losing out; and how they must continue to take the ethical high ground and to act with transparency and integrity.

With social networking forums like MySpace selling for billions of dollars, the sky's the limit on the value being placed on relationships. And as relationship management experts PR professionals are in a very strong position to take the lead in using new technologies to manage the reputations of their organisations and client.