This was the title of my 10 minute slot at last week's B2Camp event at the Working Buildings expo at Olympia.

It won't surprise many of you to know that we are using social media tools, particularly Twitter, as part of our PR and media relations work for clients as well as building awareness of the consultancy itself.

So I thought it might be of interest to post my slides here, with a commentary (as the slides themselves won't give you the detail of what was discussed). You can also see copies of the other presentations on the B2Camp ning site.

In a later post, I will also let you have a list of our top 10 journalists that we think you should follow if you're interested in architecture, construction, building, engineering and sustainability in the built environment.

My first point was that Twitter can be seen as a huge, packed party. Full of people you probably don't know, but who are friendly, happy to chat and will happily introduce you to others you'd like to meet. The noise is almost deafening and like all good parties, a lot of tripe is being spoken...

But in this party you will find lots of journalists, many of whom are interested in what you're interested in.

Research due to be launched in the States next month suggests that 70% of US journalists use social media networks to help them with their reporting, up from 41% last year. About half of all the respondents said they use Twitter. (Read the full report on the Journalistics blog here).

Although the figures are not so high in the UK yet (see this interesting research on Twitter use in UK national newspapers), the trend seems to be towards greater use of Twitter by the media when they want to find sources, research stories and post feature requests.

In fact, at first glance Twitter seems to be a party with an A-list of media celebrities in attendance: the editors of Building magazine, The Architect's Journal, Building Design, New Civil Engineer and Construction News... they're all here!

Of course, not all these journalists and editors use Twitter to its full extent. Some don't even like it.

But thanks to those that do, there's an interesting opportunity opening up which allows companies, their PR professionals and journalists to share information, help each other and build closer working relationships.

How it works

Here's a quick snapshot of how it can work at its simplest level.

First, you need to know where to find journalists on Twitter.

There are several generic directories which might be of use:

• Twellow
• WeFollow
• JustTweetIt

There are also some useful wikis collecting information on the media on Twitter:

• MediaOnTwitter
• Muckrack
• JournalistTweets

But as you can see above, our main recommendations are to check out media websites, delve into the list of people a few journalists are following (you can bet they're following other reporters too), and also your PR company's contacts.

My proposal to the B2Campers was that we should set up our own wiki for media contacts relevant to our sector. (Want to help? Please contact me or Paul Wilkinson).

You should choose a few relevant journalists to follow on Twitter, but don't necessaily expect them to follow you back straight away. You will need need to prove your worth as a source first - and that may be best done offline in the first instance. (More about that in a later blog post).

Listening in on a journalist's Twitter feed can tell you much more about what they're interested in, and the things they like/dislike. You can also spot any requests for information - responding to these opportunities has created coverage for our clients in the Times newspaper and many online channels in the last month alone.

Keep an eye out too for the hashtag #journorequest - this is increasingly used by freelance journalists to tag tweets when they're looking for help and information.

If there are journalists following you on Twitter, you may find it useful to post updates with links direct to your press releases (created as pages on your website, full of links to useful information, images etc. rather than a downloaded PDF - see some examples above). There are different ways to do this, but my best advice is to make the tweet itself interesting rather than posting an update that says "Just uploaded an interesting press release http://blahblah". Do not bombard the journalists with messages telling them to click on your stories!

Because: HERE'S THE WORD OF WARNING!

A quick search on the hashtag #PRFAIL reveals a litany of complaints from beleaguered journalists who have received poor service from companies and their PR representatives. Any bad practice will be broadcast on Twitter, you can count on it.

Our advice? Be professional, know what you're doing, and follow the CIPR guidelines on social media.

So in conclusion...

My final thoughts at the Olympia event are summed up in these last two slides.

This one was a tweet I stumbled upon from @Ahaley, someone I don't know or follow, but someone who has summed it all up perfectly:

Yep, that's it in a 140-character nutshell.

It doesn't matter what media you are using, the usual rules of PR still apply - PR is not about broadcasting your news at anyone in the near vicinity, it's all about relationships.

And good, strong, loving relationships are built upon some age-old rules...

I think those bullet points are probably pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions please just ask!

There was an interesting discussion following my presentation into the whole issue of how we can evaluate 'social media coverage' (if there is such a thing) in our PR evaluation for clients. I do believe that it should be included as evidence of the value we can add, but the evaluation tools available today are pretty poor.

Although, as I pointed out last week, the whole Web 2.0 environment is changing and developing in sophistication so fast... maybe I shall have lots to present on at the next B2Camp.

A recent phone call to my office prompted me to do some digging for Footings.

The style of the call might be familiar to you if you work for a trade association or membership organisation of any sort, and particularly if you're part of the construction industry. We get these calls about once a month:

"Hi, how are you?! [Gushing enthusiasm from stranger on phone].

"I've been talking to your colleague Jim and he really wanted me to give you a call. We publish a very high quality journal that goes to all the key decision makers in the construction industry and my editor really wants to run a big feature on your Association. What issues are of most concern to you at the moment? Zero carbon agenda? Building Regulations? Health and safety must be a big one.... [Blah, blah]

"Well, we can offer you a full page/two pages/six pages of free editorial.... No cost to your Association, but great coverage in a glossy quarterly that's read by 40,000 senior decision makers - all the top specifiers, housebuilders, RSLs, housing associations, local authorities, major contractors, special sub-contractors, architects, QSs, surveyors, structural, mechanical and civil engineers, government agencies, public utilities, materials manufacturers...." [Blah, blah]

If you're anything like me, major alarm bells are ringing by now.

• I've never heard of this publication before (it has one of those generic titles like UK Construction World, Building National, Property Now etc).
• I've never heard of the publisher either.
• It's claiming a circulation well in excess of what we'd expect, covering pretty much the WHOLE industry and all its diverse disciplines.
• It's not got an ABC certificate of course.
• Oh, and guess what, they want to promote the fact that you're "collaborating" with them on this "exciting feature" to all the Association's members in order to invite them to advertise. They may even want a list of your members in exchange for this "great opportunity".

Welcome to the trade mag version of vanity publishing, and its close cousin 'support advertising' features.

Fed up with these calls and curious about what was going on with this particular rogue publication (which has recently changed its title again), last week I had a really helpful chat with a bone fide publisher who knew the set-up. He explained that these tactics tend to cluster around three types of features:

1. Project features about a particular building project, where the developer writes some blurb about the project and all the companies, contractors and suppliers involved on the project are invited to place advertising saying how pleased they are to be associated with Building X and its developer.
2. Event features about a major exhibition like Interbuild, Ecobuild or a conference, where the event organiser writes the blurb and all the exhibitors are approached to advertise in support.
3. Trade association/membership organisation features, where the Association writes some blurb and all the members are encouraged to advertise in support.

You get the picture.

As a publishing model, it can occasionally work well for all parties, he told me. Sometimes.

BUT there are major dangers:

• If the sales team can't sell enough advertising around the feature, it won't get published at all, so you've wasted your time.
• There is usually very little information about who receives these publications, and readership numbers are not the same as actual copies distributed (assume a standard multiplier of x 4).
• The quality of the content can be shockingly bad.
• The ad sales techniques can get very pushy, which is also bad news if the Association then receives complaints from its members. They may feel obligated or bullied into advertising in a magazine where they would or should not spend their money.
• And there are (allegedly) cases where a publisher has simply taken the advertising revenue, published enough copies of the magazine to give one to each of the advertisers, and pocketed the rest of the cash. Illegal, immoral and pretty much invisible fraud.

I'm afraid our sector has its fair share of these sorts of publishers. If you call me, I'll give you the names of our prime suspects.

So here's the bottom line: No up-to-date ABC certificate, no editorial and certainly no list of our clients' members. Sorry.

Here's another in our quick series trying to debunk a few PR myths and misunderstandings.

This is a true story - a comment I received some time ago from a new client:

"I don't understand. I gave the journalist all the information I could - our brochure, annual report, even a copy of the presentation I gave at that conference last month - and they still got it wrong!"

The moral of the story? Less is more.

Information overload is a sure fire way to confuse (or simply turn off) a busy journalist under deadline. If the reporter has to struggle to find your point of view in a swathe of corporate literature, or sift through a 900-word email to get the facts and simple three-line quote that's needed, then you cannot expect them to write a good article that accurately reflects the facts and your views - or even to write one at all.

It's much better to find out exactly what they need and for you to supply it succinctly, efficiently and professionally.

They need an article or opinion piece? Fine, that probably means 600-800 words or so and a picture. They need to know what you thought about that Government announcement this morning? That probably means two or three short sentences max in a quick email (or better still, over the phone right now).

By all means put annual reports, brochures, presentations, previous press cuttings and a rich source of additional information onto your website (for example, within your News Centre) and offer links to it. But a parcel of your finest colour brochures will never be a suitable substitute for getting straight to the point.

I was delighted to hear the other day that Graham Norwood has published a new book - the well-timed title 'The Housing Downturn: Picking up the Pieces'.

It sounds like it's full of useful stuff:

• The first book to analyse the effects of the housing downturn
• Comment from a range of senior industry figures on what they believe led to the downturn
• Structured guidance for estate agents and property developers on how to survive and grow their business.

Graham is a well-known and highly respected property journalist, author of several books, and a regular contributor to The Observer, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, FT and an equally impressive list of foreign papers and property industry journals. He has kindly covered a host of stories for our clients over the years, and has been a thoroughly nice person to work with to boot!

Graham also has an unique insight into the property world, so I have great pleasure in publishing this guest blog and helping to promote his book. My copy's on order. I hope yours will be too!

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From Graham Norwood
9 May 2009

There are looks of deep concern on the faces of estate agents and developers all over the country. They've had an extraordinarily bad time with no sure end in sight.  

But talk with them - as I do all the time, as a property journalist - and sooner or later a smile will appear.

The reason is this. The housing market’s runaway train, with its prices soaring from 1993 until 2007, has finally stopped. But it was not down to the estate agents.

A few tabloids and their readers may still think agents and developers are the devil incarnate. But most of the country – no, make that the world – blame the banks and not the property industry for the slump in house prices and the broader economic malaise gripping the globe.
 
But surely there is something that the property industry can learn from what has happened? Well yes, there’s plenty to learn, and that is why I have written a book setting out how many agents and developers fell by the wayside in the downturn following late 2007.

Did these agents and developers have to fall? Were they as well prepared as they could have been, ahead of what was an inevitable downturn? Of those agents and developers who struggled through the slump, are there lessons they could teach the rest of us regarding their business models, their attitudes and their skills?

I think so, because it would surely be a mistake to simply wait for an upturn and assume all will then revert to the same world that we inhabited in the decade to 2007.

My book does not pretend to have complete answers but is perhaps most useful in raising questions, the classic role of the journalist during the ages.

Luckily I have been able to speak with most of the country’s leading developers and agents, and draw on some international examples. I come up with some suggestions about how the residential industry in the UK can move forward to avoid reinventing the wheel – and tripping over it when the next downturn comes.

Will you agree with my conclusions? Possibly not. But now is the time for all of us to think how we can move forward from now.
 
Click here to see 'The Housing Downturn: Picking up the Pieces' on Amazon.

Well, gadzooks. Following on from my last post here, I went exploring and checking my compliance with the detail of the CIPR social media guidelines.

The guidelines have been substantially revised this year and now form part of my professional Code of Conduct. They point out to PR practitioners the need to bear in mind the potential legal issues surrounding the use of social media, including the laws on copyright and intellectual property.

And thus, on investigation, it looks like I'm breaking the law at every turn - and chances are, so is everyone else who is writing a blog, putting links on their website, tweeting about interesting stuff in the press, or even emailing each other links to something worth reading.

I'm talking about 'deep linking', the practice of creating hyperlinks that go direct to a site's interior pages rather than just the home page. We do this all the time - for example, if I tell you there's something fabulous you must read on Building's website, I am highly likely to post a link that takes you directly there, not just link you to www.building.co.uk and leave you to try and fish out the relevant page yourself.

As one of the leading authorities on the Internet, Jakob Neilson, has written: "Deep linking is good linking... A website is like a house with a million entrances: the front door is simply one among many ways to get in. A good website will accommodate visitors who choose alternative routes... Deep linking is your friend: it gets users to their preferred destination as quickly as possible."

But it also turns out to be contrary to the 'Terms of Use' of almost all the websites we checked out today: Here's just a very brief selection:

• www.architectsjournal.co.uk - "We welcome hot links to the home page of our website, but not 'deep linking' by which we mean that you may not include a link to any page of our website that is not the home page." (The same goes for cnplus, nceplus and the other sites operated by Emap).
• www.building.co.uk - "Any link to this website without our written permission is prohibited. Notwithstanding authorisation to link to this website, linking to any page other that the initial start page of www.building.co.uk is prohibited...." (The same goes for BD, BSD and the other sites operated by UBM).
• www.telegraph.co.uk - "You must not deeplink to... the site without our prior written permission."
• www.timesonline.co.uk - "...in accessing [our] websites, you agree not to... set up links to any microsite, except the home page of the website, without our express written permission..."

But wait...Hoorah, a solitary voice of sanity:

• www.ft.com: "A site or service that links to FT.com may link to the home page.. and on an ad hoc, non-systematic basis deeplink to other pages of FT.com..."

Both Contract Journal and the Guardian also seem marvellously free of convoluted T&Cs on linking too, unless I've missed something.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that there is still a lot of legal debate on this issue. Reviewing case law is not my forte, but allegedly (a good legal term), linking to news items on a site owned by a newspaper or other news provider is particularly problematic, and this has been prone to litigation both in the EU and States.

So what to do? "Sue me, punk" is one thought that jumps to mind - the law's an ass, and in the right mood I'm always up for a good fight against nonsense like this. But for now, I think we shall probably have to contact all the key media we link to and ask permission to link to news stories rather than just the home page. I'll let you know how we get on - it will be an interesting exercise in its own right. In the meantime, expect to see more links than usual to FT.com until it's sorted.

Got any other advice? Please do let me know if you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, as the BBC might say.