4 November, 2009

Eulogy! wins agency of the year!

Posted by Melanie Seasons under OMG, Onlinefire, Shameless Self Promotion | Tags: , , , , , , |
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Eulogy PR online Onlinefire PR London b2b consumer

Congratulations to Eulogy! – Onlinefire’s sister agency who won Agency of the Year at last night’s PRCA Awards!

Eulogy! had been nominated for three awards: Agency of the Year, Specialist Agency of the Year and Best B2B campaign. We also at Onlinefire had been shortlisted for Best Technology Campaign as well for work that we did with Virgin Mobile and its 30p tariff last year. Remember that one?

At the end of the night Eulogy not only scooped up Best Agency, but also Best B2B Campaign for their work with Mortascreen.

And as Helen said on the Eulogy! blog, “Apologies if we deafened anyone sitting near us. We were the noisiest and most fun-loving crowd in the room!”

The moment we found out we had won PRCA Consultancy of the Year 2009!

It was an absolutely spectacular night. Many thanks to all the judges and everyone at the PRCA. Good times!
 

28 October, 2009

Contacting online journalists at national newspapers

Posted by Melanie Seasons under PR Resources, Shameless Self Promotion | Tags: , , , |
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I’ve just had my first piece posted on Reputation Online, the latest New Media Age outfit headed up by the lovely Vikki Chowney.

The article is about how PRs are having an increasingly difficult time working with proper journalists in the online space…

Notiz mit contact us

Online and offline PRs used to have very distinct roles.  Instead of print journalists, online worked with ‘bloggers’; instead of pitching to news desks, online had conversations with ‘influencers’. It was all very clear-cut.

But now, with social media officially in the mainstream, PR is going through an identity crisis. Whether this is another effect of the recession – publications going online-only or newspapers completely shutting down – no one can say for sure. But what is evident is that the lines between online and offline PR are blurring fast, particularly with national newspapers.

Most newspapers used to have separate online and offline news desks. Increasingly, there is little difference between the content that’s in print and the content that can be found online.  You can sell in what you believe to be a story for print and then find it on the web site only in a few hours time.  With publications vying to be the first to break a story, it seems that the immediacy of online has begun to take the lead over print.

With all this ambiguity, it’s very difficult to have a thorough understanding of who covers what space – and the tools that PRs normally use to research exactly this type of information don’t necessarily work in an online world.

To read the rest, do head over to Reputation Online.  there are a few comments on there already, but it would be great to keep the conversation going.

Ta!

 

15 October, 2009

Jackenhacks Carnage

Posted by Melanie Seasons under 2. London, etc., Events, Fun with Vodka | Tags: , |
[7] Comments 

Ah, gotta love events – especially boozy PR ones that involve cheeky awards and random karaoke at the bar across the street.

Yes, I finally made it to the Flackenhacks (or as they were called this year in tribute to the late King of Pop – the Jackenhacks).  This is the third year for the awards. The first one was shortly after I started this blog and The World’s Leading gave me my first plug introducing me to the London PR scene. I was gutted I couldn’t go, and promised to go the second year’s, but that didn’t actually end up happening. I believe it was because I had just moved to London and my bank account was in dire straits.

I suppose that brings me to the cost this year… and meh – not so impressed.  Don’t get me wrong, I had a lovely time, but for £35 I ended up having two glasses of wine and a few nibbles. I can’t remember what time the bar actually ran out, but I think it was around 10, 10:30? The food was really tasty, but that too, was available for way too short  a time. The poor lady going around with the tray was nearly attacked everytime she came out of the kitchen.

The awards themselves, while funny enough, were completely impossible to hear since people talked through the whole thing.

Anyhoo, suffice to say I had a much better time when we retired to Murphy’s to sing American Pie and Total Eclipse of the Heart at a ridiculously loud level.

Oh, and also watching girls trying to rip off Tim Hoang’s shirt while he took down Brendan Cooper was pretty funny too.

 

7 October, 2009

Does forced disclosure on blogger endorsements change anything for you?

Posted by Melanie Seasons under Advertising, Blogging
[2] Comments 

The US has announced a crackdown on product endorsements. For years, we’ve all been used to seeing celebs and models hawking everything from car insurance to beauty products, but surprisingly this ruling isn’t limited to Iggy Pop or Sarah Jessica Parker – it includes bloggers too.

The new rules say that anyone endorsing a product must give full disclosure about what he or she received – if anything – in compensation for the endorsement or else face fines up to $11,000.

Oddly enough, an attorney for several advertising groups in the States said this ruling is the ‘worst fears of businesses have come true’. That seems a bit of an overreaction to me. It won’t be a surprise to people that celebs are paid to endorse products (or even lie about them), and most bloggers I know already do disclose the terms in which they’re either endorsing or reviewing a product, i.e. So-and-so asked me to review, I wasn’t paid for this post, etc.

I’m curious to hear what other bloggers think, but my hunch is that we spend so much time trying to prove that we haven’t sold out that this ruling (should it ever make its way across the pond) won’t change very much at all.

 

27 September, 2009

Posted by Melanie Seasons under blogs
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So you know it’s bad when your dad e-mails you to ask why you haven’t updated your blog in a while…

Yes, I’m alive. And I come with good excuses. Here are the Top 5 things I’ve been up to in the last month

1. Living in London for a year:

The 22nd of August 2009 was my one-year anniversary of moving to London. I spent it in the Louder Lounge at V Festival with work. It was sunny, I saw The Killers and hung out with a chick who’s famous for having her backside projected on the Houses of Parliament.

2. Holiday
I went home for two whole weeks! I’ve never had two whole weeks off of work in my life since I started working.

Living in London, you tend to get this sort of tunnel vision where things on the outside don’t register as much. Like, if it’s 10pm here and 5pm at home, I have a really hard time putting myself in that place – imagining what it’s like to be in Michigan.

This trip home sort of put that in perspective. I didn’t realise how much I missed my mom, my dad and my friends until I was there. I had an amazing time. It was brilliant.

Plus, the weather was amazing!

3. Not being social:
Post-holiday, I’ve pretty much been invisible. Really what I’ve been doing is saving money and being on a massive diet (I ate WAY TOO MUCH in Michigan). Soup and porridge FTW.

4. Work:
I don’t think I’ve ever taken a holiday where somehow, it complemented out with my workload. Seriously: the two weeks I was gone, were the two calmest weeks of work ever. I even had a pretty calm Monday back. Things then, of course, picked back up and now… well… back to normal!

5. Computering:
My computer sort of died. Or at least the hard drive did. Yesterday I was getting ready to go to the gym and I heard this buzzing/grinding rattle of death. I thought that maybe a terminally ill fly got into my room somehow, but when I tracked it down to my computer and saw it frozen, I knew it couldn’t be good. I tried to restart, but then got this**:

BUT, my new roomie did some voodoo, and has me working off of Snow Leopard on an external hard drive until my new 250gb hard drive and 2gb of ram arrive on Friday.

So things are fantastic. I’m still giddy at the thought of living in London, still love my job, still have amazing friends and family back home, and am just about to get a computer makeover. Who could ask for more?***

**Photo yanked from this blog because I wan’t smart enough to grab my camera when I saw the Folder of Death.
***I may or may not be drinking wine while writing this.

 

26 August, 2009

8-bit Trip

Posted by Melanie Seasons under blogs
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I can not even imagine how long this took to make….

(Oh, 1500 hours, apparently. Jesus. H. Christ.)

 

12 August, 2009

I’m famous!

Posted by Melanie Seasons under Shameless Self Promotion | Tags: , , |
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Ha – Since I don’t seem to have enough time to write on my own blog, I agreed to do a little Q&A on Murray Newlands’ site.  Every week he posts a new interview with a blogger in the social media, PR, marketing space.  Definitely worth checking out!

Anyhoo, the interview was published today, so go ahead – give it some sugar.

PR Blogger and Social Media Blogger Melanie Seasons of Fake Plastic Noodles, an Interview

 

3 August, 2009

Happy Birthday to Fake Plastic Noodles

Posted by Melanie Seasons under Birthday Magic
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Yesterday my blog turned 2!

Fake Plastic Noodles

I’m quite proud, but embarrassed all the same. Mainly because A) I totally forgot to update yesterday in honour and B) My last actual post was 2 weeks ago.

I go back and forth about what to do about the latter, but I fear this trend of infrequent posting will continue a bit.  Some changes at onlinefire have meant that I have been super super busy and thus have had little time for thoughtful blogging.  However, since we have a new addition to our team in the form of Andrew Boyers, which means hopefully my life should get a little easier. He’s brilliant – you should follow him on Twitter.

In the meantime, I always have to eat and have therefore found it much easier to crank posts out at om nom London. So if I’m not over here, I’m definitely over there.

And if you want a trip down memory lane, this was my first ever post.  My, how much has changed…

I like how I started out this blog – posts everyday, not always about PR, fun things I’ve found online, US/UK expat stuff.  Perhaps I should return to that format.  When I have a bit more time :)

Anyhoo, thanks for reading still, people. You’re all swell.

 

15 July, 2009

The PR invasion on Mummy Bloggers

Posted by Melanie Seasons under Mommy Bloggers, UK/US Differences | Tags: , , , |
[2] Comments 

Wow. This is déjà vu for me.

When I was back in the States, much of the debate concerning PR and bloggers surrounded what was the relatively new phenomenon of Mommy blogging – and now, just a few years later, it’s arrived in the UK.

And it’s happening pretty much exactly how I remember it:

  • A couple PRs start hearing about how other PRs are pitching mommy bloggers and how those mommy bloggers are totally up for getting free stuff. (And plus it’s effective and cheap.)
  • A lot of those mommy bloggers ARE totally up for getting free stuff and blogging about
  • PRs assume that all mommy bloggers are all up for getting free stuff and blogging about it
  • So they start sending blanket press releases about any product whether or not it’s relevant
  • A lot of the moms start getting really pissed off because they’re inboxes are inundated with e-mails from PR people expecting to get ‘free advertising’ on their blogs
  • Discussion between all the moms on their respective blogs with little input from the PR community they’re actually talking about because the PRs don’t listen anyhow.

But now in the States, there’s been a new development – A proposed PR Blackout from MomDot, where they’re asking all mommy bloggers to refrain from posting any content that comes from PR for a week in August.

Here’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea…

  1. If you don’t want to participate in product reviews or interact with PR, don’t just do it for one week. Sorry, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
  2. If you do want to participate in product reviews or take pitches from PRs, it’s up to you how often it influences your editorial content. It’s YOUR blog. You set the tone. Don’t let anyone – other Mommy bloggers or PRs – tell you otherwise.
  3. Not doing giveaways or posts based on PR pitches for a week doesn’t prove anything. It’s misplaced passive aggression. The shit PRs won’t even be aware of the blackout because they’re clearly not reading the blogs anyhow, right?
  4. If you need to “step back and breathe” like one commenter put, you don’t need a PR blackout to do it. Switch off your computer. Sorted.

The debate has made it over here, with some of the top parenting bloggers in the UK weighing in.

However, the thoughts on this side of the pond are mixed, but leaning toward anti-blackout (Go Mums!).  Susanna over at A Modern Mother asks if Mummy bloggers need a code of ethics or if they should just ignore PR completely?

Commenters go both ways, but what I find most interesting is that the two worlds are colliding. A few years ago, mummy bloggers were a very closed off community, not even really interacting with their American counterpoints from what I could tell.  Now Mommy blogger/PR news is taking over everywhere.

I’ve written a few Mommy/Mummy posts before, and I know some of my Mommy Bloggers back from the States still read this, so I’d be curious to hear their thoughts on this blackout malarkey.

Cathy?  BusyMom? Mel? Christine? Anyone else?

How has Mommy Blogging and the PR relationship changed in the last year?

Reading these Momdot posts and rebuttals, it certainly seems like things haven’t changed much…

 

3 July, 2009

A refresher on ‘how to pitch bloggers’

Posted by Melanie Seasons under PR Resources | Tags: , , , , , |
1 Comment 

I had a bit of a breather tonight, so I spent about an hour going through my old ’starred’ e-mails on Gmail, and you know what? I am a bad person.  I had at least 10 pitch/introduction e-mails in there from the last month that I meant to follow up on and never did.  This, of course, makes me a giant hypocrite considering I send and manage the sending of these very types of e-mails and am disappointed when people I think will write back, never do.

So I’m going to apologise. Yes, other PR people of the world – I’m sorry for not answering you back. I promise to do better next time.

However, in my own defense, most of the pitches weren’t great, which is why I forgot about them in the first place.  That’s why it’s never too late for a bit of a ‘blog pitching basics’ refreshment post…

  • Don’t pretend to have read a blog if you haven’t actually read the blog
  • Using completely generic statements (‘love your insight, love your blog’, for example) is really tacky. Personalise.
  • It’s rude to ask a blogger outright to post something or tell a blogger you’d like him or her to put a link on their sites to your client/company/product.
  • It’s also uncouth to ask a blogger to plug one of their professional competitors, i.e. pitching a Microsoft employee on an Apple product
  • Understand what the blogger covers before pitching. You don’t have to read every post from the beginning, but at least read the About page. I’m constantly amazed at how many people don’t seem to do this.
  • If a blogger doesn’t return your e-mail but you know that your request is relevant and something you truly believe they would be interested in, find a different platform to connect on like Twitter.
  • Have a think about why the blogger didn’t e-mail you back.  It’s probably because the pitch didn’t grab them right away. Find a different angle or ask for advice on how you can make it work for them.

There are so many resources out there for ‘how to pitch bloggers‘, but with the increase in pitches I’ve seen over the last couple months, I’m not sure those posts are being used to their full effect.

 

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