PR Agencies in Belgium & their RSS feeds - edition 2009.

It is that time of the year again where I check about 29 Belgium based PR agencies - or rather their websites - on the use of RSS feeds.

Again, this is nothing scientific; I just go to the website in question, see if an RSS feed is clearly active, clearly visible and tick off a list.

(This is edition N°5 - I started keeping track in 2005.)

Why bother you might ask...

Well, I do think that if you're in the "content business", the "external communications business", the "conversation business" then you need to have an automated feed that syndicates your content - or the content of your clients - to the online world.

As Public Relations professional you need to understand the full potential of really simple syndication and apply it to your website.

This year I also listed if the agencies in question had a clearly linked blog of their own... In some cases I had to search a bit further than the home page but when this is the case it is also indicated in the list.

Now, here are the top level results:

• from the 29 Belgium based PR agencies listed only 8 had an active RSS feed on their website.
• from the same list, the same number of agencies - 8 - have a clearly linked blog.

Some remarkable agencies:

• Outsource, a former client, has completely switched from "classic website" to a full blogging platform.
• RCA Group has no RSS feed on their website but do have a blog with RSS.
• Porter Novelli, a former employer, has a new blog but it is not linked to their website.

Again this year, I am not impressed...

While some agencies really do their best to get with social media and apply it to their day to day work, most of them seem never to have heard of RSS or any other change in online communications recently.

Even when they use RSS, most agencies do not explain what it is or link their feed to an email newsletter.

In most cases you really have to look for a way to subscribe to their content... Which to me is a bit of a contradiction for a PR agency.

If you want to know how you could use RSS, feel free to search my blog for several articles or at least read this one.

You can download the full list here (opens a PDF) and if you're not on the list, or if I oversaw something, please let me know.

As I said, this is nothing scientific, not designed to be, but a simple check up once a year...

Audio & Video Round Up of the European Communications Summit 2009

The 2 days of the European Communications Summit 2009 have come and gone.

Great speakers, a strong program, well organised (bravo Grit & team) and as always a great conference to network and meet people "IRL" like we say.

Below some flavors of the conference in the form of 2 audio extracts and video from the conference.

Médard Schoenmaeckers who blogs over at Shoes Talk & who is Head of Media Relations at Syngenta interviewed me about my new role of Chief Social Media Officer. You can listen to the interview here.

Here is the Audioboo I recorded on the last day with the thoughts about the conference still fresh on my mind. You can play the audio right below.

There is also the video stream which you can watch here.

Most of the keynotes and the presentations held in the same room where taped and life streamed from there. If you want to see my presentation; it is the 3rd chapter in the video stream menu ;-)

Let me know what you think.

Why don't "we" get it - Public Relations needs to change.

Image by sgursozlyJust in a matter of a couple of days I read 2 news items that made me go "damn, why don't we get it ?" - where the "we" stands for the Public Relations profession and those representing it, myself included.

The first was a phrase in an article by colleagues John Clulow and Richard Morgan in the Communication Director Newsletter of this month;

...If Beder is right, and the consumer is becoming angrier, then corporations have something to fear. This is because the advances in technology that allow companies to modernize and improve their communications are also being increasingly used by the very people the companies wish to target...

Why, when we write about our profession, our techniques, our audiences... do we tend to see things as opposites, as "good & bad" ?

Why do we see our audience, or rather "the people formerly known as the audience" as a "target" ? Are we going to shoot them ? Bombard them with spam messages disguised as press releases ?

The article is partly about the impact of social media on the profession and at the end asks the following question:

Will they [companies] adapt their goals and products to changing opinion, or will communications be able to work around these new forces; or perhaps a combination of the two?

Work around a consumer voicing his feedback about your product or service ? Why would you want to do that ?

Instead, I would recommend every organisation to listen to their customers, through the use of social media if and when it makes sense. You would be amazed at what kind of useful recommendations you would receive, free, for nothing...

The second article came through Ragan's PR Daily.

It spoke about how the Dewey Square Group, a public affairs firm, was caught astroturfing by Matthew Naddler, Editor at GateHouse Media New England. You can read the full story here.

Actions like this give our industry a really bad image... But the thing is that the people setting up these schemes are not the brightest at all.

The Editor in this case just had to check the caller ID and search the web to find out who was behind this. Or as he writes:

What bugs me is that they seem to think I’m stupid. Or maybe lazy. Or both.

As long as professional communicators continue to plan their activities by "looking down on the village from a safe distance" and take the villagers for "stupid people", we will not succeed as a profession.

We will get stuck with our more than 50 year old communications model (opens a PDF) and follow the same faith as traditional newspapers do... They die.

As communicators we need to "become part of the village, mingle with the locals and contribute to the conversations taking place on the market square". We need to become "villagers". And yes that means getting dirty in the mud and listening to people first...

But that's all about fostering relationships, opening doors, adding value and promoting clear and transparent communications... That's what our job is all about, we PR people.

What do you think ?