Last year I wrote an ebook on social media for business.  In it I outlined what I thought the rules should be for connecting to people on LinkedIn.  These are that they should be people who -          You do business with -          You would have a drink with after a meeting -          You would recommend [...]

Monday 16th January 2012 has been designated ‘Blue Monday’ – officially the most depressing day of the working year. Research by the University of Exeter estimates that low morale could cost businesses £93bn in lost productivity. So, instead of leaving your employees to wallow in the misery of ‘Blue Monday’, use it as an opportunity [...]

In the last month I have been increasingly irritated with the growing number of LinkedIn invitations where the person has just used the standard invitation ‘I’d like to add you to my professional network’ in their email. I reckon in the last month I have had more than 30 of these standard requests against around [...]

By Andrew Rayment, partner, Walker Morris Just before Christmas I had the pleasure of being invited by Victoria Tomlinson of Northern Lights PR to talk at a seminar about employment issues and social media. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are hardly new, but the legal world is notoriously slow to react and is only now really [...]

Looking back through Northern Lights’ blogs I see I started the year talking about how to work with journalists. It’s a theme I have come back to because throughout the last 12 months I have met so many people who are afraid of media interviews. Even senior people who are accomplished public speakers are wary [...]

In an age of 24 hour news and social media, everything you do is under scrutiny and corporate reputation is more precarious than ever. A top corporate headhunter recently told PR Week’s editor Danny Rogers that corporate affairs directors have gained more influence than marketing directors over the past few years.  Rogers puts this down [...]

Last week, the CIPR’s Yorkshire and Lincolnshire group held a workshop for public sector communicators on handling Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. We ran the event in response to growing concern about the increasing volume of requests received by local authorities, universities, FE colleges and others – and the lack of coherent approach to handling [...]

We have just written a free guide for employers on how to create a social media policy for their employees (and have a free breakfast event in Leeds on Wed 7 December on this subject) This guide is in response to a growing number of queries from our clients and contacts about a number of [...]

It never ceases to amaze me how many businesses and organisations seem to see public relations as remote from other business functions.  It’s wheeled out on special occasions instead of being woven into every aspect of a business. Effective PR is as much about the way a receptionist answers the ‘phone as it is about [...]

Universities need to teach different employability skills to ensure their graduates get jobs. Blogging, Twitter and LinkedIn are essential, as are knowing how to network and ‘create’ their own job opportunities.

In a tough economy many businesses are taking a long hard look at what they spend on sponsorship.  Not just because marketing budgets are being cut, but also because companies are considering whether certain kinds of sponsorship are appropriate in austere times and, importantly, what’s the impact on business goals? So whatever sector you are [...]

I am so frustrated!  Why has our PR industry completely lost out in positioning ourselves as the natural leaders to advise clients on social media? I reckon it’s because we – and I include ourselves in this – have failed to get technical.   In our case we initially tried to do this through social media [...]

This blog also appeared on The Huffington Post. Last week a handful of men experienced, at first hand, what it is like to be outnumbered at senior levels. The Women’s Business Forum attracted more than 420 high powered delegates from the UK and America.  Of these just 13% were men.  According to the Davies Report, [...]

If you have one shred of doubt left about the business value of LinkedIn……. Read this!  Just see what discussions can be developing about your business behind your back – and how, if you are alert, you can dive into the conversation and pick things up with your customers. At the weekend I spotted a [...]

PR agencies that share news bulletins and press releases online on behalf of clients could potentially be doing more harm than good. Recent developments in Google’s SEO ranking strategy (which aims to ensure more credible sources rank higher) mean that PR agencies who don’t keep up to date with SEO could fall foul of Google’s [...]

This infographic of the Charity 100 Social Index illustrates a six month study of how well charities are using social media and how this correlates with their financial performance. Cancer Research UK comes out top for its combined brand strength and financial strength. As the infographic shows, it is not just volume that determines the [...]

I mentioned that I have been on a social-media-holiday-reading-fest.  A key goal was for me to become better at SEO (search engine optimisation) for our own and clients’ blogs.  SEO is writing website and blog copy in a way that search engines can find – and get you higher up Google rankings. My next book [...]

I have attended two events in the last week that shed very different lights on public relations and what people believe PR is about and does. It made me wonder what businesses are buying when they decide to hire a PR consultant. With colleague Helen Standing I attended a session called How to Find the [...]

Were there any killer tips to improve SEO at the ThinkVisibility conference? In our pursuit to improve SEO (search engine optimisation) skills, three of the Northern Lights team attended the ThinkVisibility conference in Leeds this Saturday.  Thanks to @thehodge for organising a lively day complete with pick’n’mix sweeties and Lego people! I’m still digesting the [...]

Even if you don’t have children and rarely read blogs you’ve probably heard the term ‘mummy blogger’. It refers to parents (‘daddy bloggers’ are also now taking off in a big way) who blog about anything to do with their children. There are thousands of them but some have become incredibly influential, winning major awards [...]