Transparency and honesty are key for telling your green stories
The scrutiny of green claims intensifies. Europe’s retailers are in the spotlight over their approach to plastic packaging. While it would be unfair to claim no progress has been made, there is still massive scope for improvement. The report finds: “that many supermarkets are promoting false solutions that fail to improve recyclability or cut back
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Crisis management can sometimes be just a sincere apology
A great piece of #crisismanagement. Last weekend in most of the nationals a story ran about Vogue Magazine’s publishers asking The Star Inn at Vogue pub in Cornwall to change its name as it might “cause problems”. The articles ran an apology which Vogue issued quickly after realising they had been a bit hasty sending
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Greenwashing is top of the meeting agenda
#greenwashing is something our clients have moved to the top of meeting agendas. They realise in the pursuit of trying to do the right thing for the #environment that they could be so easily undermined. #coldplay fell foul last week. Whatever you think about Coldplay, I don’t doubt that their intention was right. Unfortunately doing the right thing for the
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Social care in the pandemic – a sector of heroes
This week we finished working with Valorum Care Group after more than four extraordinary years. Extraordinary is probably the best word to describe our time with the group which provides care to more than 1,000 people in schemes across England. When we took on the work we never thought we’d be supporting them through a global pandemic
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Winds of change or blowing in the wind?
For 15 years, at IPB Communications , we have worked on planning application consultations for #windfarms. We have heard many arguments from vocal minorities why turbines should not be placed in their community. The arguments against have ranged from a considerable amount of false science to support a belief that turbines don’t work effectively, right through to they
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“Give us good news for a change,” say the newsdesks
The obvious focus for us over the last few weeks has been to help clients adapt their communications to the new environment we are all operating in. There is an obvious nervousness about making sure that communications are sensitive and much of our support has been about tone and thinking about how messaging will be
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Coronavirus – get the message right
The onslaught of coronavirus headlines is overwhelming. Cutting through the hysteria for the facts feels near impossible. We are crying out for clear and confident advice – who would we normally we turn to for this? The government, our NHS and its team of health experts. Yet this is a government who not only appears
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The news source dilemma
The juxtaposition of two stories online today about the future of the media and how we get our news is quite interesting. First the children’s TV news show, Newsround, is cutting its afternoon broadcast. The reason given is the show is now being watched more online by children. At the same time the head of
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No more cat and dog videos….Really?
Never post a dog or cat video is the advice we would give our clients – how does a cat playing a piano really add value to your brand?. So apologies, but am going to break our own rules here – this determined chap really does show the power of good video (and not expensive)
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Video – keep it simple
We’ve talked before about how effective video can be in terms of getting your message across. Shoot on an iphone, this 5 second clip of AO Recycling’s millionth fridge being processed has notched up more than 16k hits on LinkedIn – keep it simple when telling the story.
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Identify the risks to your reputation
A question every organisation needs to ask is “what measures do we have in place to protect our reputation?” But before you answer this question, you need to identify and understand what the reputational risks are to your organisation. The risks can be split between internal and external and then between incident-led and issues-led. Internal
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Making staff your social media ambassadors
Your staff can be your best ambassadors on social media if you get it right. Using their own social media channel to be an advocate for your business can be really effective. It can be as simple as liking a post or retweeting a company post. Here’s a few suggestions for the best way to
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Getting connected
You’ll no doubt have received messages on LinkedIn or Twitter from people offering to boost your connections by 1000s for just $10. But do you really want connections who have no interest in what you have to say? Cutting corners is not the answer to growing connections on social media. Hard work is – there
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It’s good to talk
Recently one of the team spoke by phone to a local resident who had sent in a rather terse email to one of the many project accounts we run for clients. He was amazed a) that someone had responded and b) that someone had taken the trouble to call him and listen to his concerns.
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Loose words will damage your reputation
Loose words online can cost a business or organisation dearly in terms of reputation and profit. In recent years staff policies and contracts have adapted to cover staff use of facebook and twitter (or at least tried to keep up with the ever changing social media landscape) – in bid to prevent staff sharing sensitive
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10 days to approve a tweet – something is wrong
Having a social media presence is no longer sufficient. A presence needs to be backed by a clear strategy for what you want to achieve online. Strategy includes processes for posting effectively and efficiently. The most effective social media comes from reacting quickly to events, comments etc. Don’t let internal processes cause a log jam
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Thought leadership – let the world know your original thinking
What is thought leadership? Look it up and you get this definition: a type of content marketing where you tap into the talent, experience, and passion inside your business, or from your community, to consistently answer the biggest questions on the minds of your target audience on a particular topic. At IPB we put it
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Recycling commonsense – clear and simple communications are key to cutting waste
Clear simple communications are so often the key to real change. A simple message understood at a glance and delivered with impact has been known to change the way a nation thinks. Most recently the image of a whale with her dead calf “poisoned” by plastic has done just that. Rarely does a television programme
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Challenge the norm to stand out… but leave the rock n’ roll to Liam Gallagher
Recently I was talking to a fellow Public Relations about thought leadership and the best examples (and worst examples) of people striving to position themselves as leaders in their fields. They told me a story about a client who wanted to be viewed as leader in their particular sector and believed the best way was
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NHS story tellers – blood, sweat and tears (and a good story) are needed to make the headlines
You would have had to be living on a different planet not to have seen the headlines about the NHS in recent weeks. The annual winter media feeding frenzy about the imminent collapse of the service. Experts rolled out, waiting list stats analysed, images of ambulances queuing up at A&E and apologising Secretaries of State
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It was the tweet wot won it (well almost!)
In 1992 The Sun took credit for the Tory election win. The Sun and all the nationals can’t make the same claim this time around and indeed will never be able to make that claim again.
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Fake news – how about fewer fake reporters?
Fake news has been a buzz term ever since Trump made it to the highest office.
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- Transparency and honesty are key for telling your green stories
- Crisis management can sometimes be just a sincere apology
- Greenwashing is top of the meeting agenda
- Social care in the pandemic – a sector of heroes
- Winds of change or blowing in the wind?
- “Give us good news for a change,” say the newsdesks
- Coronavirus – get the message right
- The news source dilemma
- No more cat and dog videos….Really?
- Video – keep it simple
- Identify the risks to your reputation
- Making staff your social media ambassadors
- Getting connected
- It’s good to talk
- Loose words will damage your reputation
- 10 days to approve a tweet – something is wrong
- Thought leadership – let the world know your original thinking
- Recycling commonsense – clear and simple communications are key to cutting waste
- Challenge the norm to stand out… but leave the rock n’ roll to Liam Gallagher
- NHS story tellers – blood, sweat and tears (and a good story) are needed to make the headlines
- It was the tweet wot won it (well almost!)
- Fake news – how about fewer fake reporters?
