PR is not just about getting media coverage. Half the job of PR is finding (or creating) the news in the first place. The other half is getting it noticed. If you forget to invest in the first half then you can forget about getting good coverage.

It is the job of a PR agency, supported by the internal marketing/PR function, to find and nurture the stories within your business. So where can stories come from?

Customers! – PR practitioners are like broken records with this one. Tell them about every customer you sign, otherwise they’ll keep nagging you. Customer stories are what the media wants. If you’re not signing customers, put them in contact with your existing ones so they can write case studies to help you get new ones. Incentivise your sales team to encourage new customers to go public with the deal too. Remember that customer references can range from a simple name check to video testimonials to media tours, so there’s almost always a form of reference that a customer will be open to.

If you really want to put a firework up the customer reference process, let your PR agency do it by putting them in direct contact with your sales team. If nothing else the extra nagging might spur a few more sales. When working at its best, your PR team will drive a constant pipeline of customer references that the whole marketing function can use. And they’ll stop asking you about customers all the time; you can be the one nagging them instead.

New products/services – This is the most obvious time to issue news. The trick is making sure the news focuses on the problem that it solves, or the money making opportunity that it creates for your customers, and not how cool and important you think the changes are. To the point above, get a customer who’s already using it, or has helped in its development, to support the press release with their testimonial to give it more credibility.

Product updates – You might not think that a v1.x update is newsworthy, but in many instances it can be made to be newsworthy. At the very least your agency can use it to re-open a dialogue with a friendly journalist. Tell your agency about every product update, regardless of how newsworthy you think it might be. Your agency will tell you if it’s not (at least they should), otherwise they’ll find a way to make use of it.

Bear in mind that the product was updated for a reason. That reason is usually something that’s worth talking about.

Partnerships – Forging relationships with major name software vendors is always a great way to raise your profile. Raising the brand through association works. Coordinating with the partner’s PR department can also be lucrative as you can leverage each other’s media contacts to ensure world domination.

If they’re not a big brand, the fact that you’ve chosen to work with each other says something about each company. Shout about the great work you’re doing together.

Awards – Awards are only worth doing if you’re going to tell people when you win them. Keep your PR team up-to-date with the awards you’re entering. Don’t tell them the morning after you’ve got back from the ceremony otherwise no one will be interested by the time the news gets out.

Significant new hires – The onus here being on the ‘significant’ part. Poaching a big name from a competitor, another major brand or someone who’s just known as a big shot is a great way to grab some headlines.

Research – While not the cheapest tactic, research is one of the best ways to generate a good volume of quality headlines and to associate your brand with a thought leadership topic. If you want to change mindsets or raise a debate, independent research really is the best way to start that conversation. Providing the research is well planned (i.e. you ask the right questions) and executed (i.e. not just thrown out on the wire in a press release) then the return on investment is sizeable, rendering the initial cost insignificant. Research continues to be one of the most effective PR tactics. It can also be re-used by the marketing team and provides excellent reference material for all other marketing/PR content for many months afterwards.

Company initiatives – Whether it’s the company raising £500 for Movember or investing in a new training certification process for its staff, anything the company is doing above and beyond its core function can be newsworthy. Make sure everyone within the company is aware of the PR potential of initiatives like these, as you’ll be amazed at how many great things are going on.

Milestones – Company milestones are an excellent way of generating free news. They’re also about as self-congratulatory as you can get while still being considered news. While self promotion is generally not considered news, a company milestone such as achieving record turnover or celebrating 25 years in existence can often work as a legitimate story.

18 months is a horrifically short lifespan for any product, but when it’s supposed to be Microsoft’s trump card against iOS and Android, I can’t see the logic in it. Or am I missing something? 18 months does seem very short when compared to their desktop OSs which have a support lifecycle of around 10 years, but mobile OSs are different aren’t they? Phones (and their OSs) are refreshed more often than desktops, but even by this metric it still seems very short. Most people/companies upgrade their phones every two years, so their device will be dropped by Microsoft before they’ve even moved on. Does this mean Microsoft plans to release new OSs every year like Apple does with iOS? A major number update would seem odd – Windows Phone 9 just wouldn’t work while their desktop/tablet OS remained Windows 8 (which you would expect to have a multi-year lifecycle). Windows Phone 8.x makes more sense, as Apple does with OS X, but I’ve seen no signs of this.

Without a firm roadmap for the product, this just seems like a very short-sighted decision, and a PR and marketing disaster. Which company is going to take the gamble of a Windows 8 phone now?

Both agencies had very good relationships with their target media and got good results for their clients. So what’s the best approach? In my view both approaches are valid in the right scenario, but I would lean more against the “phone them for the sake of it” camp. Here’s a few tips from us on how to decide whether to follow up with a phone call.

Know the sector/publications – tailor the approach accordingly

Some sectors appreciate follow up phone calls, while others really don’t. A good PR agency will know which approach will work from experience. The technology sector for instance is an example of an over-PRed world, with more PRs pushing stories to fewer journalists. The challenge in this sector is getting your client heard through the relentless noise, and unfortunately for the journalists, this results in the need for follow up calls. The sad fact is however, that the agency that rings the most will get more stories covered and more opportunities for their clients than the one that doesn’t. This will not be from the cultivating of relationships but simply playing the numbers game.

The trick to not damaging your journalist relationships is choosing which stories warrant the follow up calls over those that don’t. Relentlessly flogging a x.2 product update is a waste of everyone’s time and will only damage the agency’s relationship with the journalist/publication.

Add value

Use the phone call to add value to the press release – add the offer of a spokesperson interview, bylined article, case study etc. This will make the phone call more genuine and hopefully yield a good opportunity for your client.

Pitch right

It sounds obvious, but pitching right is a skill. Get the email headline and pitch (if you write one) right first, and if the story is relevant you won’t need to follow up with a phone call at all. However, if a phone call is necessary (and if you need to gauge interest in the story then a phone call really is the only way – you can’t expect journalists to reply to every story they decide to cover with a “thanks, I’ll write that up today”, although that would be nice), then get straight to the point and don’t push it if the horse is already dead.

Build good relationships so you don’t have to make too many phone calls

At Spartan PR we pride ourselves in being selective with the stories we pitch. We value journalists’ time. As a result we’ve built good relationships with journalists, many of whom we rarely speak to on the phone. This is because they know we don’t give them rubbish, so if we email them, they are more likely to read it. Keeping good media lists and cultivating meaningful relationships based on good content is the best way to get your news covered.

So where do you sit in this debate? Are you a journalist who is fed up of being called all the time, or do you appreciate the dialogue that a phone call brings?

But I have an alternative theory. While Passbook may have played a role, I believe there are two reasons why Apple haven’t put NFC into the iPhone (and don’t ever plan to):

1. NFC in a smartphone is not an elegant solution. Considering NFC is primarily being targeted as a means of making payments, taking your phone out of your pocket to pay for something is no more convenient than taking out your contactless payment credit card
2. Apple is working on a more elegant solution to using NFC – putting it in a smartwatch

Apple has always marched to the beat of its own drum. They don’t jump into a market segment just because everyone else has. They only move if they think they can deliver value to the consumer (and consequently achieve commercial value) and they can genuinely add something new to it (refinement of something that already exists, or just ‘doing it right’ is as good as something new by the way). The reason they reject a technology is often because they feel the technology doesn’t actually solve the problem it’s purporting to solve, and they have an alternative solution in the works. They didn’t jump into netbooks even though everyone else was. Instead they came up with two alternatives – the MacBook Air and the iPad – the slimmest laptop ever launched (more portable and significantly better to use than a netbook) and a tablet (an even more portable and alternative to the pared down netbook experience more geared towards what netbooks were actually used for). By not jumping into the netbook category Apple ended up creating two new categories of products that are both going strong today – the ultrabook and the tablet. Where are netbooks these days?

This leads me onto the alternative, more elegant solution. If the appeal of NFC is convenience, then tying it to your phone defeats the object. All NFC achieves in a phone is remove a couple of cards from your wallet. Your wallet is in your pocket or your handbag. Where do you keep your phone? I bet you keep it in your pocket or your handbag, next to your phone. No convenience has been gained by this. You’ve just swapped taking your wallet out of your bag with your phone. Admittedly there are alternative uses for NFC beyond making payments, and yes Samsung, ‘bumping’ phones together to share files is cool, but there are perfectly viable alternative ways of doing that without NFC that are just as convenient. For NFC to be more convenient than the alternatives, it needs to be, well, more convenient than anything else.

This is where NFC in a watch makes sense. Pay for something without taking anything out of your pocket. Check into your flight by showing your wrist. Ditch your Oyster card and ride the Tube with your watch. Amazing!

These are the reasons why Apple’s upcoming iWatch will have NFC.

Essential Skills

Good writing skills

This is number one. If you can’t write, don’t bother applying. We’d like to see examples of things you have written in the past, whether short stories, magazine articles, blog posts etc. we don’t mind. There’s no point blagging it either as we will test these before offering you a job.

Love of technology

This is something that was conspicuously absent from many of the CVs we received. We’re a PR agency focused on the technology sector. Clients come to us because we understand and love technology. That’s one of our USPs. I like to think that our passion for technology comes through on the website and especially on this blog, so I would expect candidates to show some interest in technology. No we’re not looking for geeks, but just people who appreciate what technology is and how it makes a difference to people’s lives. You don’t need to have built your own PC, just tell us what smartphone you use and why (don’t worry, it’s not a trick question), what tech brand you respect, and what you really think of Twitter. That’s all we ask.

Interest in the news

If you don’t know what’s going on in the news then PR isn’t the right job for you. We live in the 24 hour news cycle. You should too.

Personality

Personality is important. Without one, life can be pretty dull. Bring your personality to work every day. This doesn’t mean you have to be bubbly and outgoing. We just care that you have a personality because it’s important for enjoying work (and life too for that matter)  and for building a rapport with your colleagues, clients and journalists. We love rapport with clients and journalists especially.

What is not essential

PR experience (at least for junior roles)

It would be unfair to ask someone coming in for a PR apprentice or junior account executive role to have one year’s PR experience. We know everyone has to start somewhere. It amazes us how many agencies don’t seem to get that reality. If you do have some experience, whether interning or whatever, then even better, but we won’t turn you away for not having worked in PR before.

If you think this sounds like you, then get in touch!

* The computers that is, not the predicting murders thing…

Minority Report was released in 2002. It conveyed a future where murders could be predicted and prevented, with Tom Cruise heroically jumping through windows to save some would-be victim in the nick of time. While the film itself was a fairly average affair, its vision for the future of computers and technology in general really grabbed people’s attention. I have to say I remember the technology far more than I do the plot of the film. Ever since the film debuted, IT pundits have loved to refer to the latest gesture-based interfaces as ‘Minority Report like’. The now-defunct Microsoft Surface kicked things off, but it was the iPhone, and later the iPad, that really brought a Minority Report style interface to the masses. Pinching and moving a photo on an iPad is still as beautiful as ever. Surface did this first of course, but Microsoft failed to convince everyone to replace their coffee tables with expensive, digital alternatives. But these still required a screen, so are not strictly Minority Report.

While Apple successfully brought gesture controls to the masses, it was Microsoft, with the launch of Kinect for Xbox 360 in 2010, that first launched a viable, mass market technology that could genuinely deliver the Minority Report experience. While initially launched as a gaming platform, the surge of innovation from hackers led Microsoft to open up the system beyond the Xbox 360. Personally I don’t think Microsoft has done enough to capitalise on the innovating of Kinect, but with the competition heating up and taking gesture affordable controls outside of the gaming sector, 2013 could really be the year that gesture controls become mainstream. Here’s the tech that will make 2013 feel more like Minority Report’s vision of 2054:

The Leap Motion Controller - Highly accurate, portable, gesture controller for only $80

The Leap Motion Controller is launching in the US in May. And it will only cost $80. Contrast that to a Kinect that costs nearly twice the price and only works on an Xbox, and you can see how this can really catch on. Developers have been clambering all over this device for the past year, so it should have significant software support when it launches in just a few months time. Even if $80 translates to £80 (which if often does), this is still cheap enough to be an impulse buy or a birthday present. If this doesn’t make motion controls mainstream in 2013, I don’t know what will.

SpaceTop 3D see-through computer – Put your hands inside the screen!

While no release date was announced, this is an exciting proposition. Launched at the TED conference this week, the SpaceTop is a transparent computer that allows users to reach inside and touch digital content. It’s effectively augmented reality, but instead of the ‘real’ (i.e. non augmented) content being reproduced artificially on the screen via a camera, only the augmented aspects are produced on a transparent screen. So when you see your hand, you’re looking at your real hand, and not an image of it. While not as accessible as the Leap Motion Controller due to the computer and screen being an intrinsic part of the set up, it is a neat alternative that adds to the momentum and innovation in gesture based controls.

PlayStation 4 Eye – Sony’s very own Kinect clone

The PlayStation 4 will be released towards the end of this year. While not necessarily the focus of the PlayStation 4 announcement (a lot was announced so it’s hard to see what a single focus could be), Sony unveiled a new camera for the system, called the Eye, which can recognize depth and track motion, as well as sensing the colour bars on the new DualShock 4 controller to track the location of players. While there’s no word yet as to whether the Eye will ship with every system (unlikely given the cost) the fact it’s there from day 1 and is incorporated into the system’s DNA will make it a mainstream part of the PlayStation experience, and thus into many people’s daily routine.

Kinect 2 – Round 2 for the innovator

It is widely accepted that the new Xbox, when announced, will include a new and improved Kinect. Given the announcement of the PlayStation Eye alongside the PS4, this is hardly a surprise. However, if rumours are to be believed, Microsoft will also bundle the Kinect 2 with every system. If this is the case, then gesture controls could really become mainstream.

Out of all of these technologies, it is the cheap price and the accessibility of the Leap Motion Controller that will make the most difference. I don’t know about you, but I’ll certainly be getting my hands on one as soon as I can. The SpaceTop is an interesting concept that may or may not catch on. The new consoles will excite gamers and will make a big difference in the long run, but since they won’t be launched until the end of the year they won’t make the biggest impact on 2013. I haven’t even talked about Google Glass yet, but since that’s more of an augmented reality play that should sit in another blog post. Needless to say, the way we interact with technology is going to change a lot in the next few years.

Having now seen it, I have to say I’m impressed. Samsung are doing a really good job with their marketing these days, and regularly beating Apple at their own game. Marketing is king in the consumer tech wars. Good products are necessary too of course, but the best products in the world won’t catch on if they’re not marketed well. Apple and Samsung both have excellent products, so ultimately it comes down to how well they market them.

Come on Apple, time to up your game.

Still not convinced that Apple’s adverts aren’t as good as they were? This Bloomberg video by Businessweek’s Sam Grobart should help.

We have teamed up with the PRCA to offer their accredited PR apprenticeship. The one year course combines 4 days/week on-the-job training at our Cheltenham offices with one day’s training at a local college. In that year you will learn all the fundamental principles of PR, such as media relations, copywriting, making effective use of social media, presentation skills and campaign evaluation. You will learn this from doing it, not simply reading it in a textbook. We’ll pay your tuition and also give you a bit of a salary too. Beats having a massive uni debt doesn’t it!

Full details are available on the PR Apprenticeships website here.

Our view on the PR apprenticeship is that it’s the starting role at the company. You will be embedded within the client teams from day one. The tasks we set and the responsibility we give you will be no different to that of a Junior Account Executive coming out of University  (the typical starting role in PR). The difference being that you’ll be paid during the year and earn a nationally recognised qualification. We have no intention of dropping you after graduation either – providing you behave. If you can show us you have what it takes, are committed to PR and to Sparta, then we fully intend to take you on as a full time member of the team.

So if you’re interested in technology, a career in PR, and can work from our Cheltenham office, fill out the form on the PR Apprenticeship website here.

Samsung’s strategy of mocking Apple in their ads isn’t just funny, it plays right into the hands of Android and/or Samsung fans who are proud to not follow the crowd. Samsung’s marketing has improved a lot in recent years – they’re clearly spending good money with good agencies – and their sales against the iPhone have rocketed as a result. The good reviews of their phones helps too of course.

While I still prefer Apple and its products, its obsessive secrecy and habit of taking itself too seriously too often really does open itself up to this. Fair play to Samsung for capitalising on this and to whichever agency pitched the idea of this campaign.

Look out for the final Super bowl advert on Sunday (Update: Blogged on it here).

And if you haven’t already seen it, check out last year’s commercial for the Samsung Galaxy SIII that started it all. If anything because it’s got the Darkness in it with Justin Hawkins sporting his new Zappa look:

European cloud tech is doing really well – A lot of the smaller (read: “up-and-coming”) firms I met were not American, but European, as were most of the larger hosting companies. Even the lead sponsors – Flexiant – are a Scottish cloud orchestration company. The cloud has ushered in a whole new tech gold rush, and Europe certainly seems to be making the most of the opportunity. Go Europe!!!

Firms still prefer local hosts – While software companies can build a global presence fairly quickly (if the tech is good it generally solves the same problem found around the world), hosting is somewhat different. When it comes to your company’s all important data, whether you’re buying a public cloud or building your own private cloud, firms still prefer to know that their data is nearby. Perhaps not in the same country, but definitely in the same continent. The sheer number of European hosts at the event, or US hosts promoting their European data centres, was testament to that.

Expos still work (at least they appeared to be here) – Judging by the buzz around the show floor and the sheer volume of traffic passing around, it is safe to assume that genuine business was being done. While I don’t know that for sure of course, the mood felt positive and everyone I spoke to were positive too. Good for economies, good for the organisers and (hopefully) reassuring to the marketing managers who question the vast expense of these shows each year. Hopefully they can prove that genuine business was done and the investment was justified.

Pizza Express restaurants within exhibition halls are really expensive – It’s always good to end on some sound consumer advice. £9.50 for a shrunken pizza and a bottle of coke – eaten while standing up – is expensive. I understand these places always have a mark up because they have a captive audience and only trade when events are on, but when you consider this Pizza Express is not a separate restaurant for the exhibition hall only but the back of the proper restaurant with a few tables set aside, then it seems expensive. Lesson learned for next year – leave the exhibition hall, walk down the road and go in the front door of the restaurant to get a full size pizza, coke and a comfy chair to sit on for the same price.

Attending expos like this always fills me with excitement, as it reminds me that innovation never stands still. There is always a new company with a new solution, ready to solve that nagging problem. It’ll be interesting to see how some of the newer companies in the smaller stands progress over the next few years. Maybe they’ll be the platinum sponsor in a few years time. We’ll keep our eyes peeled.