Whatever you think about the big banks, I think most PR people will have felt a little sympathy for the comms team at Goldman Sachs this week, when one of the finance firm’s executive directors decided to announce his resignation from the company via an op-ed piece in the New York Times FULL STORY »

There have been more developments in the good old lobbying register story this month, as the government undergoes its consultation on what their statutory register should look like. Obviously the public affairs bit of the PR industry has been considering this matter for quite FULL STORY »

The PR Society Of America has completed its previously reported bid to find a new definition for what exactly it is that PR does, having decided that their existing strapline dating from 1982 – “Public Relations helps an organisation and its publics adapt mutually to each other” – was no longer adequate. FULL STORY »

Any company which has decided to use social media as a routine customer communication platform is having to work out what constraints should be put on those in charge of the tweets – after all, most messages will be in the public domain even if they are directed at one specific customer.

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The UK’s Copyright Tribunal considered the previously reported links licence issue yesterday, reaffirming last year’s appeals court ruling that said such a licence is required by all media monitoring organisations, but amending the fees to be paid by said agencies. FULL STORY »

Wondering why a journalist hasn’t returned your call about that fantastic story you fed him or her last week? Well, it’s probably worth checking this quick checklist written by American PR and former reporter Gil Rudawsky. There’s no shocks in his list of the five biggest mistakes made when FULL STORY »

So, are you optimising the headlines on your news releases so they score highly on search engines? Make them punchy (preferably less than 65 characters) and full of key words is the advice of US-based Schwartz MSL Research Group, who recently reviewed the headlines on 16,000 FULL STORY »

Ah, infographics, they’ve become fashionable haven’t they, ever since we stopped calling them diagrams. But how about incorporating the new fad for visually pleasing diagrams and illustrated facts n stats into press releases? Well, personally I always prefer words in my press releases, FULL STORY »

If your partner’s an unrepentant Marmite fan, expect to be receiving messages of love via the yeasty product’s Facebook page next Tuesday, because the food spread brand is making three Valentines e-cards available via the social network  this weekend, so that its fans  FULL STORY »

What do Red Bull, Coke, Oreo and Victoria’s Secret have in common? Flippin loads of Facebook fans, that’s what. Coke lead with 38.3 million signed up Facebook followers, but those other brands are now also talking to millions of consumers via their pages on the world leading social network. FULL STORY »

Public affairs consultant Lionel Zetter gave evidence to a Commons committee yesterday about the government’s plans to launch a statutory register for the lobbying sector, according to PR Week. He told the committee that there was widespread support for such a register in FULL STORY »

Are PR people finally working out how to engage bloggers? Well, writing on his US-based Online Marketing Blog, Lee Odden reckons a lot of blog-targeting PRs still have some way to go before fully understanding how the blogger’s mind works, and therefore how best to approach them. FULL STORY »

While interested parties galore continue to take to the stand in the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics at London’s Royal Courts Of Justice, across town two PR men have been giving evidence to a parliamentary committee considering the issues of privacy and injunctions. FULL STORY »

So, it seems no questions were off limits at the most recent of several Muppet press calls to promote Kermit et al’s new movie, and Miss Piggy had no problem addressing criticisms of said film made by Fox Business presenter Eric Bolling in the US recently. Speaking on his ‘Follow The Money’ FULL STORY »

The PR Consultants Association has teamed up with trade bodies from the other communication industries, including the Institute Of Practitioners In Advertising, Incorporated Society Of British Advertisers and the Marketing Agencies Association, to launch a new edition of their ‘Agency Remuneration’ FULL STORY »

So, what do you do if you’re a high profile MP and your intern sees your Twitter account open on your computer and sends out a message with the phrase “twit-rape” in it? Well, while ideally you wouldn’t want to find yourself in that situation, if you do, probably Tom Watson’s approach is best FULL STORY »

And now a warning to communicators everywhere of how bad customer service can cause a real PR headache, especially in the Twitter age. Gyms firm LA Fitness found themselves at the receiving end of some very bad press this week after refusing to let a long standing customer out of a two year FULL STORY »

The PR Consultants Association has published the findings of a year long study into barriers faced by people looking to enter the PR industry, and how said barriers might be removed. The study was led by John Lehal, MD of Insight Public Affairs, who spoke to practitioners, academics and other FULL STORY »

The PR Consultants Association has welcomed the government’s recent announcement that it will create a wide-reaching register of lobbyists in the UK. The trade body urged the powers that be to act fast on this venture, and to make sure all organisations which lobby, including charities, lawyers, FULL STORY »

American business mogul and reality TV star Mark Cuban caused a stir in PR circles recently when, in a tips piece for start-ups, he noted “never hire a PR firm”. Cuban reckons journalists and bloggers respond better when contacted directly by new company founders rather than by a hired PR, FULL STORY »

Do PR people sometimes spend far too long crafting one big press release around a specific announcement their client wants to make, even if they know the story isn’t likely to excite many journalists, even on a quiet news day? Some very possibly do. PR people should be more honest with their clients, FULL STORY »

The Chartered Institute Of PR has announced it will work with Wikipedia to develop guidelines for PR people on how they should interact with the community of volunteer contributors and editors who manage the online encyclopaedia. The partnership has been forged in response to concerns some companies are ignoring FULL STORY »

News media owners in the UK – from the newspapers to the news channels to the radio station owners – have this week been making submissions to a consultation by their regulator OfCom on media plurality, just how much of the news market any one publisher and/or broadcaster FULL STORY »

The founder of the former Band & Brown PR agency has confirmed he is no longer running his old company on a day to day basis, instead setting up a new venture called Berlin, which he calls a “marketing collective” specialising in “idea architecture”. FULL STORY »

So, after possibly the trickiest year of his professional career, Rupert Murdoch has signed up to Twitter, a move which presumably resulted from some serious consideration being given to repairing the Murdoch brand, rather than a sudden festive urge to embrace the social networking revolution. FULL STORY »