Damien Mulley

Recession is official. As seen on IrishElection.com first!

Piaras once again has a great post on his blog about the PR industry and possible futures. This will probably come across as talking the guy down but the quality of his blog posts have really risen in the past year or two and his site is now a destination for insights in to Public Relations for me. Piaras’ blog is a great educational resource. It’d be nice to see him get more comments and attention for it. Also, while we’re on a roll, various people in the media keep chattering amongst each other how impressed they are with his professionalism for organising events and launches and getting the press what they need before they even know they need it. (How’s that swelled head Piaras? 🙂 )

Anyway, to my point. Piaras talks about some PR agencies in Ireland that are using Facebook for advertising some events and the PR agency staff inviting people to various launches and parties.

So ultimately will PR agencies win new business based, not simply on their knowledge of communications techniques, but on how well connected they are with specific audiences?

Slattery Communications in Dublin do this for example and it’s really effective as it gets real people inviting real people to events, it feels more friendly that way but also it turns everyone that accepts an invite to advertise it to their network as well and by publicly listing who is also going, it will probably get people to go based on who else is going. It makes these events more networking focused. Win, win, win.

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I left a comment on Piaras’ post with my own thoughts but on further thinking I wonder is it also the job of a PR company to make their clients more connected too? Maybe this is already part of their job, I dunno. With the examples of those events on Facebook for example, I wonder should PR companies just run monthly networking events where they bring their clients together to simply network and maybe bring in other people to the event too. Not a sponsored by event or launch of anything event, just a get to know each other event and have their clients get to know more people which can only lead to more connections and a better business environment. PR companies have fantastic contacts as far as I can see and increasing the connections between these contacts would surely enrich everyone?

Porter Novelli put together a really good concise guide on how to approach bloggers if you want to pitch to them or do business with them or send them/us something interesting. They contacted me and asked was there anything I’d like to add and there wasn’t, I think they’ve got it all covered. Anyone that’s in business should take a look at this because more and more you’ll probably be reaching out to bloggers. Well done Kerry et al.

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I’ve been doing this Business Blogging Training lark for over a year at this stage both privately and in public training events and it’s a lot of fun and you get a great kick when you see new bloggers come online from these events. There is however a lack of good trainers in this area and too many “consultants”. Ones without blogs! I’d like to see more competition in this area as it’s healthy for companies and healthy for me to have competition. There’s a need for fresh air and new thoughts in this area.

To help this along I’m going to “open source” my training, in a way. I’ll give away all my course material (once I add some of the latest additions after recent courses) and put them online but in addition to this I’ll happily train up to 12 people (for free) in how I train people in Business Blogging.

Are you interested? I’ll be doing this course on a Saturday and more than likely in Cork. Probably everyone’s fav funky Hotel. But I might be convinced to do another in Dublin or elsewhere. 🙂
There are of course some conditions if you want to sign up:

0. You’re a blogger already.
1. You agree to start offering the courses after being trained and give at least one free public Business Blogging Training Course (like I did in Cork and Dublin).
2. You agree (though it’s not enforceable and screw is subjective) to not screw people over on charging them for your courses.
3. If you use my material you give attribution somewhere and you should strongly consider also open sourcing your training material.

The more people with a clue giving these courses and updating training material and giving it away, the better for those giving the training and receiving the training.

Send me an email damien < at > mulley.net with the subjectline “Train the trainers” if you want to take part. There are no guarantees you’ll make the cut. I’ve a feeling there might be an over-subscription. 🙂

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Read this highly interesting post from Matt Dickman about his employer’s report on digital influence.

As you can see the internet is more influential in each country than any other type of media. It’s nearly twice as influential as TV and eight times more influential than traditional print media. Interestingly, consumers spend a marginal amount more time on TV than the Internet, but it’s not effecting their decisions proportionally.

The study found that consumer behavior falls into one of five categories. They are research, commerce, communication, mobility and publishing.

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In association with the Irish Computer Society I’m doing a Business Blogging Training course on Tuesday June 24th and an Online Marketing training course on July 8th. If you’re interested in attending then contact the ICS.

Both the Blogging course and the Online Marketing course are interactive and you’ll be doing practical stuff. Watching Powerpoints wastes everyone’s time.

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