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.