Should my first post of my first blog be startling? I expect so, but I have decided to ease myself in gently, and poke my head around the door before opening it and rushing headlong into cyberspace.
Lots of ideas. Lots of thoughts, and questions and all that. But taking it slowly.
This is going to be about words. And about how to use them properly.
I write articles, and I also communicate with the press, in thought and word and deed. PR, in effect.
Prompted by leaving the country and the media for 12 years, which I spent in Africa (Sierra Leone, before the troubles, Kenya, ditto, and Cameroon, and then on to Brussels for a couple of years) before returning to England, older, wiser and less inclined to commute.
So – an office at the bottom of my garden. Comfortable, some mod cons like broadband and my beloved Apple Mac, and room for painting too. I write articles, I bash away slightly desperately at fiction, knowing that I will allow myself to be distracted by a falling leaf unless I am careful. And I do PR too, with a colleague, who knows her stuff and whom I like.
Between us we have set up a small but – we like to think – perfectly formed agency which does our few clients proud. Few not because nobody wants us, but because we want to keep it that way.
My first subject then is how I have noticed that people have very little idea what PR is. There seems to be a general feeling that it involves smiling young girls with little experience who ring up a lot when they are not wanted, lots of expense account lunches, a slightly disapproving sense of ‘anyone can do it so why spend money?’, and a distrust of the undoubted fact that it is very hard to quantify.
This is indeed how PR is done – badly.
Anyone who has had – or done – good PR has a different take on the matter.
I would say that, wouldn’t I? Well, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it, and believe me I wouldn’t enjoy doing it badly.
So for the next few blogs, I am going to discuss how good PR is done.
Shirley Conran, when she had become well known as Superwoman, years and years ago, was quizzed on a radio show by a disgruntled listener.
Surely anyone could write a book like hers? What on earth was so special about it, and by association, about her?
“Well,” she answered, politely. “I agree. Anyone could write a book like mine, as long as they were prepared to put in a lot of effort doing the research, and work hard on finding a good agent and publisher, and promoting it all over the country when it has just come out, and have the discipline to keep writing till they have finished, and usually at 6 in the morning every morning.”
Anyone could probably do PR, if they were prepared and able to attract clients who trust them to do a good job, to devise an imaginative and effective strategy, and to work hard for people who hope for coverage, quickly and thus lots more clients.
