The Guardian’s X Factor miss

A newspaper is an argument on the way to a deadline.

So says the ex-editor of The Times and Sunday Times Harold Evans in his brilliant, compelling autobiography My Paper Chase. And he should know.

Fast forward to now and I wonder just what the argument was on the way to The Guardian’s front page this weekend.

Under the headline ‘Celebrity culture fuelled the riots, says Duncan Smith’, the paper reports the work and pensions secretary’s claim that a “get rich quick” celebrity culture is creating an unbalanced society.

Part of the blame, he says, is that shows such as The X Factor celebrate luck over hard work.

He is quoted as claiming: “Kids are meant to believe that their stepping stone to massive money is The X Factor. Luck is great, but most of life is hard work.”

So far, so predictable. Unfortunately, slap bang above the front-page masthead in bold red print is a trail banner for a Suzanne Moore article on pg 44. It reads: ‘How my daughter taught me to love The X Factor’.

I can almost hear the subs saying ‘ouch!’.

Of course awkward juxtapositions of stories and messages are a fact of newspaper life, but especially on the front page they are fair game for a gentle dig.

Business South goes into bat at the Rose Bowl

The home of Hampshire cricket opened its doors to the fifth annual Business South B2B expo today.

Around 100 exhibitors were at the Rose Bowl to showcase products and services. They included universities, chambers of commerce, local authorities, charities and an A to Z of business sectors.

I was at two of the debates facilitated by the Wow Company’s Peter Czapp. The first was on internet marketing and in particular how to get to number one on Google. We discussed the basic proposition that content is king so it needs to be refreshed, dynamic and of real benefit to users. In more detail, we looked at the value of inbound links, page ranks, meta tags, writing a wikipedia page, using Google Analytics and local listings, and adding your location to key search words.

The other debate was on improving customer relationships with a specific focus on ensuring existing clients know the full range of products and services you offer. There were some really helpful tips on devising opportunity matrices and customer surveys – great stuff for small or indeed any business to know about.

The event was supported by Business Link, Hampshire County Council, Southampton & Fareham Chamber of Commerce, BH1 and Kinnarps. The chosen charity was the Jubilee Sailing Trust. For more information visit www.business2businessshows.com.

The billion dollar brains who keep our digital identities in touch

You’re in your 20s and you’ve built a successful internet business out of your coding skills, drive and imagination.

Someone is so impressed they offer to buy it from you for a mind boggling $1 billion, a sum way beyond the wildest dreams of most mortals.

At a stroke you could live in luxury for the rest of your life, provide for your children’s every need and still donate vast sums to worthy causes.

What would you do?

If you were Mark Zuckerberg and the business was Facebook, you’d say no.

Such extreme decisions fill the pages of a brilliant behind-the-scenes look at Silicon Valley businesses by the famous tech journalist Sarah Lacy.

The Facebook Story is a guide to the start-ups, the founders and the egos behind the innovative social networks and online communities that have fundamentally changed the way people communicate.

It’s Geekville alright with tales of all-night coding sessions, dressed down business meetings and bottom-up applications that supplanted the original web establishment.

Lacy, who writes for Business Week, TechCrunch and Yahoo! Finance, spent 18 months researching the book and interviewing such pioneers as Max Levchin and Marc Andreessen as well as Zuckerberg.

It has taken a tenacious journalist to get the visionaries, executives and venture capitalists to open up on how the Valley community turned pipe dreams into megabucks reality.

The result is a compelling book full of great insight and very human anecdotes.

Photo - ©Falko Matte - Fotolia.com

Journalism versus corporate PR at the heart of the Rolling Stones

There are some fantastic anecdotes in ‘Under their Thumb’, the journalist Bill German’s account of life inside the Rolling Stones bubble.

As the editor of Beggars Banquet, the official Stones newsletter, Bill can lay claim to more insight on the band than any other member of the media.

Early copies of the fanzine were must-reads for Mick, Ronnie and Keith who invited their devoted follower to interviews, parties and exclusive gigs.

For many years, the business arrangement worked in that Bill paid his way on tours, was allowed to write objectively about the various goings on, and sold the newsletter to eager fans across the world.

But as ever money - or more accurately the corporatisation of rock and roll - got in the way.

Access can be given and it can also be taken away. As time went on, it became the tour managers, promoters’ publicists and other PR types who called the shots. One of the fascinating aspects of this book is how the various managers rather than the band members themselves decided who got backstage, who could take photos and who could say what in print. It seems that being in the band only gave you so much clout in the pecking order.

On the Steel Wheels tour, Bill recounts his desperation at being barred from taking potentially great photos for Beggars Banquet under an edict laid down by management that photographers could not shoot past the first two songs of a concert.

Showing up without exactly the right backstage pass meant Bill would have to argue with publicists and security guards to be let in. Many were not Stones fans and had never heard of the fanzine. He was accused of being a ‘delusional psychotic’ when he told one gatekeeper that Keith and Ronnie had personally invited him to the show.

Despite his undeniable credentials in promoting the Stones to thousands of fans over many years, Bill couldn’t get permission to interview the band on radio as tour promoters had auctioned off all rights to radio interviews. The various managers and PR gurus also sought to steadily restrict what went into written copy.

Rock and roll is a mammoth business and with vast sums of money invested in tours, studios and honing the right image, obviously PR has to play a role. In Bill German’s case though, it’s just a shame he was under such pressure to stop being objective.

Under their Thumb, published in 2009 by Aurum, is brilliant. Bill provides an update on more recent Stones’ shenanigans on his blog at www.billgerman.com where you can also order the book.

Chamber urges businesses to add ‘more networking’ to their New Year resolutions list

Southampton & Fareham Chamber of Commerce launched its programme for 2010 with a call for businesses to make more use of its networking and marketing services.

Representatives of more than 50 businesses and charities were at the events preview, held today at the snowy East Horton Golf Club at Fair Oak near Eastleigh.

Director General Jimmy Chestnutt said the Chamber had designed its diary to offer as much support as possible for members who, he recognised, had experienced a challenging 2009.

He said this year’s Chamber membership offered increased business opportunities through more networking events, seminars, training courses, research projects, promotions and sponsorship.

Mr Chestnutt specifically referred to the Chamber’s telecommunications scheme which had saved one member a total of £6,700.

He also highlighted the Chamber Passport offers that enable members to achieve discounts on a variety of business services.

Today’s event, sponsored by Intelligent Marketing, attracted a wide range of organisations.

The charities Hampshire Autistic Society and the Wessex Cardiac Trust were represented while other market sectors included insurance, legal services, property taxation consultancy, banking and hospitality.

For more information on Chamber events, visit www.soton-chamber.co.uk.

Social media - don’t get cut on the bleeding edge

Lots of companies without social media PR experience are feeling under intense pressure to try it out.

They quite reasonably don’t want to be left behind by competitors whose online engagement appears to be growing.

The explosion in popularity of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook might make it seem compulsory for a company to start a social media presence.

Certainly, persuasive marketers have been keen to advocate social media tools, but do you really need them as part of your communications strategy?

I’ve come across some wise words from both the Chartered Institute of Public Relations here in the UK and the President of SiteLogic.com, Matt Bailey, in a video interview on WebProNews in the US.

The CIPR say that there is no single magic wand that can fully evaluate the effectiveness of social media – there are a number of ways based on analytics, trends, traffic and so on.

Key to it as always is defining clear objectives at the start of your activity and what success will look like at the end. Any activity has to be set against your business strategy and demonstrate value as with other parts of the PR and marketing mix.

The CIPR reminds members and their clients that openness and transparency are key elements to being successful and that, used correctly, social media can have a real and positive impact on business.

Matt Bailey also talks about using social media correctly and counsels against throwing your brand onto Twitter just for the sake of it.

Speaking to technology correspondent Abby Johnson on Web Pro News, he describes delving into social media without a proper plan as “surgery without diagnosis”.

He says the underlying business strategy is always key and that you have to choose the medium that suits your company. “It’s very easy to get distracted from your message by focusing too much on the medium,” he says.

Good points. Social media provide a direct, personal and global way to communicate, and PR pros ought to be up to speed.

But for companies who don’t have to be at the bleeding edge of technology trends, there are plenty of other PR tactics and strategies to pursue. They can engage when it is right to do so but should also not be afraid to say no.

Government agrees first ever mandatory standards for measuring PR value

PR agencies who supply communications services to government are to evaluate their effectiveness against a mandatory set of metrics issued today.

The government’s marketing and communications procurement arm, the Central Office of Information, has circulated the ‘core standards’ advice to all suppliers on its PR framework following a recent industry consultation.

The aim is to set out clear definitions for the terminology and methods that can be used to measure PR’s value where evaluation is an agreed part of the campaign brief.

Most of the standards are already well-established. On a basic level, suppliers should calculate the actual number of pieces of coverage generated including through syndication.

Another key element is ‘reach’ expressed as a percentage and quantity of a target audience exposed to one or more mentions.

There is also a new cost per impact metric, a helpful way to try to establish value for money and return on investment.

Data sources will continue to involve JICREG for local press and the National Readership Survey for national press and magazines. On the broadcast side, there is BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) and RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research).

While there is no single comprehensive measure for digital, the advice mentions data sources such as comScore, Google Analytics and Nielsen.

The COI says that a consistent approach to evaluation will make it easier to compare results across PR campaigns and other marketing disciplines.

Standardisation will help to ensure accurate measurement and to benchmark results for future planning and evaluative purposes.