Some Friday thoughts on effective public relations and publicity - as I watched a decent webinar about the evolution of PR in the era of social media.

There’s a lot of content out there competing for our audience’s attention, more than there ever has been. How do you manage to get noticed in the increasingly crowded world of content?

Today it’s not just about sending out content to media and hoping they’ll put it in the newspaper. Now it’s all about generating a decent amount of fresh content that your audience will find enjoyable.

I loved this quote:

“As zombies are to fresh brains, search engines are to fresh content”

Your users will find your good content if they’re looking for it and it relates to them… and if you keep it fresh.

How do you ensure your content is fresh?

Learn what your audience wants and develop content that speaks to them.
Use keywords that relate to the types of things your audience is looking for.

And use this tool to evaluate whether your press release has decent keywords that will work with search engines: http://www.pressreleasegrader.com

I was awarded three communication awards

The London chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators held its Virtuoso Awards this month recognizing the very best of professional communication work in London.

I was thrilled to be recognized with three awards of merit:

• Two for my work redeveloping the hospital websites and creating an interactive story-sharing website
• And one for my work developing a social media campaign for It Gets Better London

Also at the awards night, a new “people’s choice awards” competition took place. Guests voted for their favourite short video produced by local pr pros.

All of the videos had to do with a thought-provoking theme: The Evolution of Communication

• check out the three one-minute videos that capture thoughts on how communication has evolved

Including this absolutely ridiculous “evolution of dating” video that my friend Sonya Gilpin and I created:

The Snap London community photo newspaper profiles different members of Emerging Leaders London every month… and my turn came up.

Read about my thoughts on volunteering and the potential of London’s emerging leaders to help our city achieve its potential.

My profile in Snap London: at work pointing on the map to my office and where I was born