As a technology PR person I’ve inevitably been involved in discussions with clients about whether they should consider using the micro-blogging site Twitter to support their PR and marketing.  And to be honest many of them are still quite sceptical.

Lots of business people still believe that a site on which people spend endless hours announcing to the world ‘I just had sushi for dinner’ and sharing links to ‘witty videos’ is no place for throwing scarce B2B marketing and PR resources.

So I was interested to see this post on AdWeek.com about a survey which asked people why they bother to  follow company brands on Twitter. The key results were:

- To get updates on future products (38 per cent)

- To stay informed about the activities of a company (32 per cent)

- To receive discounts and promotions (30 per cent)

- For fun and entertainment (26 per cent)

- To interact ie share ideas and feedback (20 per cent)

- To show my support for the company to others (23 per cent)

The poll is not specific to B2B marketing/PR, but it does give some indication of why Twitter might be useful for a B2B brand.  And the top reason – ‘to get updates about a company’s future products’ – kind of supports our own survey in which one in five IT executives said they use Twitter to stay updated about the IT industry, including news from technology vendors.

Photo credit MattHamm

On the day the nation’s teenagers got their A’ level results, there was a buzz doing the rounds of the blogs and social networks about the fact that anyone who’d just received their exam results had a sure-fire way for getting their name and picture in the papers – as long as they were a pretty blonde. The idea was peppered across the Guardian’s live A’ level results blog, with one Tweeter reported to have given the following advice:

Girls: collecting A-level results today and want to get in the papers? Quick! Dye your hair blonde, straighten it, wear a vest top and JUMP

Another Tweet proclaimed:

I can confirm males are getting A-level results today too – my little brother just got in touch with news of his

A quick scan of the media coverage confirms that many of the A’ level pass stories were indeed accompanied by images of pretty females (see this page which has collated pics from yesterday’s papers).

This blog is about technology PR, so is there anything that B2B technology companies can learn from this?  Just that it’s another clear example of how photography can help get you media coverage.

Whether you agree with the very un-PC focus of yesterday’s A’level press coverage or not, it’s certainly true that if you have a strong, unique or just plain attractive image to go with a story, you’re likely to get better results.  And that’s just as true in technology and business media (as any good tech PR will tell you).

As an aside: in the past I’ve noticed that pics of female technology spokespeople were slightly more likely to be used by the tech media (hardly surprising in a traditionally male dominated industry).  Although I couldn’t say for sure whether this is quite as true today.

Photo curtesy of ElPablo! under Creative Commons

Is tech B2B social media marketing too American for us Brits?  That’s one of the ideas put forward by Forrester analyst Peter O’Neill in his report ‘B2B Tech Marketers Must Tune Their Social Media Campaigns For Europe’.

The report, which is based on Forrester’s annual North American And European B2B Social Technographics Online Survey of tech buyers, explains that tech buyers’ adoption of social media in the buying cycle has accelerated since last year. But there are regional differences and one of those is that UK buyers lag behind US, Germany and France. One explanation given in the report is that “British buyers’ patience is tried by US-centric English language Web sites and engagements”.

This makes sense to me. There are many tech vendors that rely almost completely on US produced content for their web sites, blogs, podcasts and virals – which is obviously about conserving resources and wanting to put out a consistent  message. But while some vendors might have gotten away with driving traditional media relations using US produced content, I wonder if it is going a step too far to do this with social media.

As O’Neill puts it “experienced international marketers know that the US and the UK are separated by their common language, not joined”.

The report also points out that French buyers are very big on the use of their own language within social media, while German buyers love to share opinions about technology adoption using social media.

Image credit: Hub Pages

That’s the point of a recent post from Daryl Willcox (chairman of the media database and wire services) which highlights a study indicating that a large chunk of top UK PR agencies don’t appear to be using basic SEO principles on their own web sites – even though many claim to be able to help clients with search engine optimisation.

As a small tech PR company that tries to integrate SEO basics into our PR offering, we know we’d be held to account (and rightly so) if we didn’t practice what we preach.  So at the start of March I embarked on my own in-house SEO initiative to see if we could improve our visibility on the search engines, specifically Google.

The approach focused on well known SEO tactics: ensure that page titles and meta tags are optimised with key words and phrases; push out a link-building campaign using keyword rich press releases and submissions to online directories and article sites; and keep a good flow of relevant fresh content posted on the site via the blog.

These are the basics of SEO,  but we’ve managed to demonstrate that, with a little effort, they can make a difference.  Because within a single quarter, the CloudNine PR site was listed on the second page of Google for our chosen key phrases, including ‘tech PR agencies’ and ‘technology PR agency’ (from virtually nowhere – as the site only went live in February).

The extra visibility is starting to have an effect, because we’re getting inbound inquiries and attention from the web site.  So if you’re still wondering about SEO on your web site and are not sure about splashing out on one of those ‘all-knowing’ SEO consultancies, perhaps your PR agency can help with some of the basics.  Just check they’re actually practising it themselves though!

1. A surprising number of firms aren’t backing up their business data!

2. Employees continue to use ridiculously easy passwords.

3.The biggest IT security risk comes from inside the organisation.

4.Lots of companies don’t have a business continuity plan.

5. This holiday season stressed out business people will be logging in to work from the pool/beach.

6. Mobile/remote working technology allows businesses to work despite…(insert example of latest snow storm,  flood, rail strike etc).

7. Businesses will soon stop using mainframe computers.

8. Company data is growing at an alarmingly fast rate – how will IT depts cope?

9. Businesses aren’t clearing hard disks of confidential data before scrapping their old PCs.

10. Lots of firms aren’t prepared for …(insert the latest IT/data compliance regulation).

Let me know if you can think of any more.

The manifesto discussed proposals for introducing greater openness into the procurement process, including clamping down on large all-encompassing contracts.  There was talk of pushing for greater use of open standards in public sector IT – so big technology projects can be broken down and shared among smaller IT providers.

But there’s no surprise that the incumbent big IT suppliers have been busy trying to persuade the new government to preserve the status quo.

I noticed in some quotes at the bottom of this article in Computing that Fujitsu , one of the biggest IT suppliers to government, had begun ‘advising’ the [then] shadow cabinet even before the election.   Fujitsu suggests that the plan to divide IT contracts into smaller and shorter chunks has already been dropped – because the IT giant helped the Tories realise that Govt would have to act as systems integrator to each of these smaller projects.

I’m sure there is some merit in Fujitsu’s advice on this last point.  But it does make me wonder if the incumbent IT suppliers wield so much power that bringing in true openness into government IT procurement will be  too big an ‘ask’.

To help answer the question, we recenly commissioned a survey of 300 UK IT chiefs, including CIOs, IT directors and IT managers, to find out what they prefer. And we crunched the results  to come up with our very own list (see below) of IT chiefs’ preferred technology news and information sources.

What methods do UK IT chiefs find ‘useful’ or ‘very useful’ for keeping up-to-date on IT industry developments, including general news from IT companies?

1              Online publications (64 per cent)
2              IT blogs (52 per cent)
3              Trade shows (50 per cent)
4              Printed publications (47 per cent)
5              Vendor Events (44 per cent)
6              IT Analyst blogs (40 per cent)
7              IT analyst events (38 per cent)
8              Vendor emails (31 per cent) and LinkedIn (31 per cent)
9              Twitter (20 per cent)
10           YouTube (19 per cent)
11            Facebook (13 per cent)
12            SlideShare (12 per cent)

(Based on an independent survey of 300 UK IT decisionmakers commissioned by CloudNine PR)

You’ll see that online publications came top of our list, with 64 per cent of the sample saying they find them useful or very useful for keeping updated on IT industry developments, including news from IT companies.  Second came independent IT blogs, scoring 52 per cent, with print publications (47 per cent) coming fourth.

Interestingly, one in five (20 per cent) of the sample finds Twitter useful or very useful for keeping abreast of news and developments.  And LinkedIn – the more longstanding and business focused networking site – rated even higher with 30 per cent.

When I showed the results to a couple of tech marketers, they were a little surprised to see  more people choosing online publications ahead of print. It wasn’t too long ago that most people would have thought it more valuable to get into the print versions of the weekly or monthly IT mags than their online sites.

And the fact that independent IT blogs are now so influential may present a challenge. Many marketers and PRs are still unsure how to approach bloggers. You’ve really got to spend time understanding each blogger’s individual interests and preferences.  And sometimes you just have to respect that some bloggers don’t want to be pitched to by companies.

As for Twitter and social networking, many IT publications and journalists are obviously already sharing their stories via these sites.  But perhaps the numbers of IT bosses who say they now access industry news via Twitter and LinkedIn indicates the sites are valuable enough for more tech marketers to start using them for directly sharing their news and information – and possibly creating specific content for social media.

It’s worth highlighting though, that while everyone’s focus seems to be online right now, trade shows and events came in at numbers three and five in our list. So it’s definitely not all about online communication.

By the way, we commissioned independent research specialist Vanson Bourne to conduct the survey. They did a poll of IT decisionmakers, including CIOs, IT directors and IT managers in 300 UK companies.   The sample included organisations with 50 to 250 employees, 251 to 1000 employees and over 1000 employees. There was an approximately equal split of companies operating in Financial services; Manufacturing; Retail, Transport and Distribution; and Business and Professional Services.

If you don’t know about the new features, here’s a short video that introduces them.

1 Tell them about important news early

If you don’t tell your PR agency about forthcoming news stories until they’ve almost happened, they’ll do a rush job and you’ll be unhappy with the results.  PR takes planning – trust your PR people enough to tell them about potential news stories as early as possible.

2 Listen to their advice

Your PR agency will never understand your business better than you – the client.  But they do know PR.  So if they say that a certain news story or initiative won’t work or is not a good use of your budget, then do give them the time of day.  After all, you’re paying for their expertise.

3 Help them meet media deadlines

The media is a deadline driven business.  Try to work with your PR when they say you need to get information (eg copy, images, a response to a media request) to a journalist by a certain time.

4 Give them access to your executives

Don’t bar your PR agency team from building relationships with people within your company – especially your spokes people .  The more information they can ’suck up’ , including the hot buttons of various spokespeople, the better the quantity and quality of opportunities they’ll generate.

5 Turn up for media interviews and phone calls

A PR person’s credibility with the media depends on their clients delivering what they promise to the media. So if you (the client) don’t turn up (or are late) for phone or face to face media interviews, it can hit the PR (and ultimately you ) hard. 

6 Tell them if you’ve spoken to the media directly

If anyone in your organisation has taken a direct media call or responded to a media request, make sure your agencyt knows about it.  They might be able to add value and maximise the opportunity for you (or help limit the damage if it was a negative issue).

7 Be open about when they are not meeting expectations

Sometimes clients can be too patient…or maybe just too polite.  If your PRs are not meeting expectations, then they need to be told…now. Any partnership will work best if both sides are clear about what’s working and what isn’t.

Image Credit: FreeFoto.com

With newspapers generally in decline it’s a bold move (as everyone keeps saying). But will it work?  Especially when other papers such as The Guardian seem to be using the opposite strategy – keep  your content free and spread it far and wide so you can rake in the advertising.

Add the fact that one of the country’s biggest online news sources – the BBC News site – is ‘free’ at the point of consumption and it’s pretty tempting to believe that people will just turn away from paid content and click through to one of the free alternatives.

I agree with those who say that yes, for ‘bog standard’ news of the day stories, people will go to any number of sites to get the content for free. 

So a site such as The Times will have to offer something different – with additional value – to get away with charging for content.   In the way that the FT, with its emphasis on company and financial news, has successfully introduced charges for online content.  As have many of the specialist trade media publications.

It’s going to be interesting to see just what additional value Murdoch’s sites will deliver to keep punters paying subscriptions.  Exclusives and scoops?  Big name columnists?  I’m pretty stumped as to what they could do. Which is probably why I work in PR and don’t have a top job in publishing.