The power is still with the journalist and rightly so when it comes to placing content in newspapers and magazines.

As a B2B PR it is about presenting an idea or content that sells – the content needs to be relevant to the readers and more attractive than any other story that is pitched in by numerous other agencies and in-house communications execs.

But when I have comments for a feature and more especially want to place a full article, perhaps a 1,000 words or more the criteria for which publication to approach tends to look ever more closely at the online aspect of the title.

Many publications neglected their online potential, that is changing (has changed) although there are still many titles that still have not realised that their online presence is key and possibly a valuable new source of revenue.

For those that do not produce the hard copy content in their online versions, writing a 1,000 words, or even 500 words, when there are other possibilities makes them second best to receiving good content – journalists still need submissions.   The choice of where to pitch also resides with the PR.

There are exceptions, publications that hit a certain demographic or are very prestigious overcome the doubts produced by less than impressive online credentials.

So if the online side of the publication is less than expected it is discouraging to offer a feature that will take a number of hours to produce with no Google ranking to raise online profile.

Moreover, it is ever more important to any client that has the Internet at the centre of its business to receive quality links.

Links add value to the client’s website and in turn the PR can demonstrate its contribution far beyond advertising equivalent values.

When I pitch I now check out the online version of the newspaper or magazine and ask, “Does a link come with that coverage?”

Would you like to play on a Premier League pitch, and also contribute to a worthy cause?

For anyone with an unrealised childhood dream of football glory it is a dream come true.  Moreover participants will be raising funds for the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity.  It is surely an irresistible combination for all that have a modicum of fitness.

Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital treats over 185,000 patients in state of the art facilities designed to be child friendly and with over £50,000 being raised in the first year of the tournament in 2010, it should do really well this year.

The idea is the brainchild of Sheldon Bean and Nigel Woolfstein, and after a successful tournament last year at Blackburn’s Ewood Park it is coming to Manchester City’s ground in May.

Besides the chance to play a minimum 60 minutes on the finest pitch in England, being managed by ex-professionals, there is a  gala dinner to celebrate afterwards.

To find out more about your first step to football glory in aid of Royal Manchester please go to Fundraising Football.

Twitter devotees can follow the event at @fundfoot2012, please feel free to re-tweet

Artisan has been featured in Hotel Business magazine this week on the subject of using PR to full effect with the upcoming Jubilee and Olympics.

The following gives an introduction into how hotels and indeed other types of leisure businesses, possibly outside these industries, can use this double whammy to raise their profiles:

2012 will see the United Kingdom host two events that will attract the attention of the world’s media: The Olympics and the Jubilee.

While the Olympics is, with the World Cup, an unrivalled spectacle, the Jubilee offers something that is quite different to anything the rest of the world can offer.

The Jubilee meets the weary truism of marketers, it possesses a unique selling point: The Royal Family.  Nowhere else has a royal family that intrigues, interests and commands the following that our Royal Family does.

Both events combined offer a double opportunity for hotels to market themselves to not only the influx of visitors from abroad, but also those that will follow after, inspired by these monumental happenings and are again reminded of a country with a very rich history and culture.  And let’s not forget home grown tourists.

But how does a hotel capitalise on this PR wise?

The newspapers will be inundated with connections to both events, some interesting, many fatuous and obscure.

Journalists are well known for sifting through information to get to the best material that they can use, what is discarded (should it be printed) would make paper mountains to rival The Alps in size.

So my first piece of advice, taking it just for now that there has been planning of events and offers and deals possibly based on past experience of what delivers, is to hire a PR professional for working with the traditional press.

If you are interested in local newspapers, lifestyle, travel and other trade magazines, radio and TV, nationals it is prudent to raise a budget and find a brilliant PR.

I would say that wouldn’t I?

Yes I would, for the experience of knowing what makes a story and then pitching it in to the right contacts is a real skill.

Some non-media people can be very good amateur PRs, but do you really know what makes a good story?  If you don’t it could be a false economy to do it yourself.  You might learn the PR trade, but the time it takes to learn and the mistakes made cost be costly.

Remember a piece in the travel supplement of a national could be worth thousands and can drive considerable traffic – can you really achieve that for your business?

So select a good PR, meet a few based on recommendations from trusted contacts that have experience and ideas.  Then ask yourself can you build a working relationship with them?  And perhaps most importantly, are they motivated to work with you?

The best PR in the world is a liability if they are not committed to your success.

The PR should prompt you in identifying stories that have interesting angles that will stand out.

To give an idea of the sort of stories that make headlines, Max Clifford Associates ran a story tying Pimlico Plumbers with the London Marathon when employee Pierre Jean “Buster” Martin, ran, or rather walked, in the race at the age of 100 or so he claimed – he could have been 97!

This got national media coverage including some juicy coverage on the BBC News as well as in the international media.

While your hotel might not have someone that ran in the 1948 Olympics on the staff, you never know connections or stories you could come up with.  Do your research, with your PR, as you never know.  Less ambitious stories can also bring results.

Hoteliers should approach social media, perhaps with professional guidance, and aim to make a mark.

Twitter, yes, blogging, could be good to build a following talking about how you will prepare for the big events, what the hotel is running and how it turns out – in effect your own online newspaper.  Also consider embedding videos, which can be used for online search engine purposes as well as illustrative ones.

With all the above you will need time and dedication and discipline to make it work – it is time intensive, so make sure you have the resources in place.

It looks awful and amateurish to start blogging with gusto and then for there to be a cessation of activity.  It also looks as though you have given up your activity for The Olympics and Jubliee.

A lesser-known social media channel that should be considered is Foursquare.

Foursquare is an ideal tool because users tell their followers, often pulling through to Twitter and LinkedIn, where they have been and sometimes what they think of the venue.

It is like leaving an online calling card and then letting your friends and contacts where you have visited.

The value of Foursquare is that you can build rewards as part of acknowledging a visit – so if you visit enough times you will gain higher levels of status.  So if you gain a more junior status such as mayor you might give away a night at your Jubilee dinner event for instance as a reward.

This is just a starting point for using PR; there are plenty of marketing initiatives you can run as well.

One piece of advice that can be acted upon now is to act now.  Summer might seem a long way away but it is not.

To find a PR, to build up a relationship with your supplier and to plan the campaign and deliver it are not things that can be turned around in two weeks.

Clients want value, a real return, understandably, on their money before parting with it in these tougher economic days.

One of the ways PR can answer confidently the inaccurate preconception that it is hard to determine a ROI for the discipline is to show the generation of links as part of the PR return.

And as more and more clients want links the following question needs to be answered.

What Value do you put on a Link?

I was pitching recently to a business – part business to consumer, part business to business, which has at its centre its website for generating clients.

I was able to show from an on-going campaign not only coverage in nationals such as The Daily Telegraph and The Scotsman, good trade coverage online and hard copy, but also links coming from blogs all the way up to the BBC.

For businesses that have the Internet at the heart of their marketing efforts and consequently their sales, links are highly valued – gold dust.

But until recently I did not have an answer, a system to value links, a price to calculate a ROI.

One response I received from a client was that it was absolutely key, more so than the coverage itself, but as to a value they professed that they did not know where to start?

The answer to the question was surprisingly simple.

When I told the prospective client the fact that it was possible to achieve links through supplying editorial content and not just by placing adverts or (plastic) advertorial, there was amazement.

The SEOs had been factoring in and paying out a none too mean sum to secure links.

I was told that they expected to pay around $50 and upwards (£30-£40) and rising for links from blogs, which seemed to be US based – in a disappointed tone it was relayed that there was some rampant inflation in prices.

For nationals such as the UK’s The Independent they expected to pay £1000 and more to secure links through advertising.

I expect really good trade magazines online might charge a few hundred pounds.

So there it is, if PR can generate links then an accurate valuation can be placed.

While gaining links in nationals is far from easy, nevertheless the accumulation of building profile, improving reputation, creating a Google presence for searches, advertising value of the space achieved, can fit easily into adding the value of links into the ROI equation.

While we are busy racking up followers, friends or connections, getting a re-tweet or comment here or there, how much do we analyse the effectiveness of our social media output?

Probably for many it is based on just that: amassing a large number of followers, with some nods towards interaction.  How else can you do it?

One free tool available on the Internet is Klout.

Simple and easy to sign-up with and use, it assesses the power of an individuals or company’s social media through algorithms that give feedback on three key elements:

How many people you influence (True Reach)

How much you influence them (Amplification)

How influential they are (Network Score)

If we take Twitter (there are other social media that can be analysed such as LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook) I have a Klout score of 37.88 out of a possible 100, up from 34.65 a few days ago.

My true reach is 286 (rather than the nearly 800 followers I have) although I am not sure if the lists I am noted on are included, there are about 50 and range from one follower to several hundred.  It is an important point as I have more followers on lists than the almost 800 cited.

Network influence is 41 and and amplification stands at 14.

I am also influential about “lawyers, journalism and Manchester.”

I thought I saw “Alan Carr” the other day in that list, but  it must have been my imagination.

It is quite fluid system, scores can go up and down.  When I looked at “I Love Manchester’s” scores, as a test, it went up straight after the riots when many wanted to show support for the city – so first test passed.

With a claim of over 85 million Twitter accounts assessed, you are free to compare scores, quite impressive as the majority of accounts are not signed-up to Klout.

I will mention two more features.

The first is a grid, reminiscent of a marketing or business matrix.  This is an account’s “Klout style,” mine is between “casual and listening” and “focused and consistent.”  As with the other indicators comparisons with friends or rivals accounts can be made.

It adds: “You actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You’re exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you “get it,” we predict you’ll be moving up.”

I am getting falshbacks to school reports.

The other is “Klout perks.”  If you are an influential social media operative you can try or be given gifts,  with the aim of promoting the brand – being influential on journalists and lawyers might not be helpful in this regard, but Manchester might be.

So for any PR that has to justify social media or simply for interested parties who want the gratification that their hours of tweeting are changing the world, it is a fun, easy and perhaps a useful tool.

I thought I would give a brief heads up to the Salford Business Expo.

Organised by Brian Everall the editor at community portal newspaper Salford Online, the expo aims to showcase the best of the business community in the city.

The event, which is I believe an inaugural one, will aim to tell local businesses about the companies on their doorstep that they might have overlooked as suppliers or clients.  With over 8,000 business in Salford the event should gain a good stream of visitors.

There are still stands left for those who are interested in exhibiting, with demand strong.  I believe well over 50 stands have been taken – I am sure Brain and his team can verify the up to date numbers.

For more information call: 0161 789 5377 or e-mail: info@salfordbusinessexpo.co.uk

Those that already network will know it is among the most powerful ways of finding new contacts and business.

So I will not have to sell the concept here to seasoned networkers, only the group.  If you have never networked, why not give it a try?

Well, we are looking for new members for our breakfast networking group Manchester Business Breakfast Club.

We meet every Friday at 7am at our rather nice venue Manchester Tennis & Racquets Club Blackfriars Road Salford M3 7AQ.

Before those that are not early risers turn off I will outline why our group is worth considering.

Firstly we have over 30 members, many of whom are very well connected.  We are welcoming and generous in helping other members; we do not operate in cliques or expect you to be a member for months before business is referred.

The atmosphere of the group is light hearted, fun and irreverent although it aims to generate new business.

As an added bonus we have no membership fees, just a small charge for breakfast.  Any profits the group makes goes back into social gatherings.

MBBC allows only one member from any profession.  So we have only one printer for instance.

However, within a profession there can be a number of disciplines where there is little or no conflict of interest.

So we have a lawyer, Zatmans, and also a family lawyer from Howards Solicitors, as Zatmans does not offer that service.  We also have a Wills writer and a probate genealogist – professions that can work alongside or with legal practices.  We also have outsourced HR that covers employment law.

So who are we looking for?

Generous individuals who are happy to give referrals, possibly offer advice and might use other members’ services, if they feel confident and trust the recipient.  It is about know, like and trust.  In return, new members can expect to receive the same help.

Despite many professions being accounted for we still have the following openings:

• Architect
• Art dealers & auctioners
• Burglar alarms/ security systems
• Business travel/ travel Agent
• Care leasing & contract hire
• Commercial gas & electric
• Courier services
• Debt management
• Interior design
• Document storage/ management
• Engineering and manufacturing
• Estate agents/ letting agents
• Executive car hire

• Exhibition companies
• Florist
• Franchise consultants
• Hotels/ venues
• Recruitment
• Recycling
• Restaurant
• Secretarial/ Virtual PA
• Sports club – we have had Wigan FC as members in the past and Manchester United came as visitors
• Surveyor

• Wholesalers
• Wine merchants

If you don’t see your profession and are interested in joining please ask, as it might be free.

If you are in the above professions please contact Graham Heap on 07725 993 400 ggheap@yahoo.co.uk

If you come you will be welcomed and will be allowed to come for free for two visits, including a hearty breakfast, before deciding if it is for you.  So why not try and find out if we can help grow your business?

It is a bland unimaginative invitation, lacking any effort or thought, and for me  it is becoming the most unwelcome calling card in the social media world.

We all like to be liked, and in business we like to be generally viewed as being well-connected, and what better way of doing that than having vast numbers of connections on LinkedIn?

Yet, LinkedIn is surely about relationships, not just numbers.

The real strength of LinkedIn is that you can ask your connections’ connections for introductions – an immensely powerful tool for generating new business or sourcing suppliers or associates.

Yes you can use LinkedIn to broadcast news, but there is also Twitter and e-mails and newsletters and direct marketing and press releases and websites and blogs – better options than collecting names on LinkedIn to target.

The discussions, if you have time, can be useful – I have given referrals and gained pitching opportunities through such groups.  I am not saying LinkedIn is not multi-purpose, but to link up without any connection misses the point.

So if someone is allowed to enter into your LinkedIn realm, would you be happy to make an introduction or ask for one from somone you don’t know, like and trust, with perhaps, a valuable and highly regarded contact or friend?

Yet I continue to get the standard,  “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” from people I have never met, who have sometimes the most passing things in common.

One contact – who somehow connected with me – even asked for a testimonial even though I had never done business with him nor indeed recall meeting him!

You might like to add me to your professional network, but at least tell me why.  If you can’t I am happy for you to follow me on Twitter no questions asked.

The Big Chip Awards last night proved very satisfactory for Manchester digital agency 11 Out Of 10, which came away with the title for “Best Use of Search” for its work with Pure Gym.

For Artisan this is the third winner in a row it has worked with to gain recognition at the Big Chips.

In 2010 it was 11 Out Of 10 with Pure Gym again for “Best E-Business Project” and the year before “Best Green Chip Award” for server hosting company Melbourne.

If you jump a year to 2007, it was Jamie Clouting at PushOn, for “Best Rising Star.”

The awards, the biggest outside the capital, attract well over 250 entries – the numbers have been going up significantly in recent years and this year I believe the number was nearer to 300 agencies, companies and public organisations submitting their work for examination.

For certain categories, such as “Best Use of Search” and “Best E-Business Project” the competition is especially intense.

So to have specifically targeted key awards – one each year for the past three years – and to have won all three is quite some achievement.

The value to clients is hard to calculate in terms of pounds and pence, but if you weigh up using the accolade of being a winner of a well-regarded industry award on an agency or company’s literature (including website), social media, for PR and in pitches to lend greater credibility, then its value must be well above the time and money invested, even by the meanest of calculations.

In some ways it is surprising that the Syrian uprising is being covered to the extent it is in the UK broadcast media.

Yes, the events in Syria are marking a radical shift in thinking and politics in the Arab world.  Yet with so little substantiated news it is surely very hard for this story to dominate news agendas as it should.

There have been no iconic images such as the one of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young women who lost her life protesting against the almost certainly fraudulent Iranian elections results two yeas ago.

And with next to no verifiable footage taken within Syria, independently minded journalists banned by the Assad regime have to rely on the accounts of refugees streaming across international borders.

In Turkey, President Erdogan, who has been building up strong economic and political ties with Assad’s regime has offered refugees from the town of Jisr al-Shughour – which has been the target of a concerted military assault – protection on the understanding they do not talk about their experiences to journalists keen to update reports.

So when the established media cannot report there is a vacuum.

It is left up to citizen journalists such as Amina Abdallah Arraf al-Omari, a 25-year-old gay woman in Damascus to tell the world what is going on.

Amina, within a few short months, was able to give an insight that no journalists could.

The blog was attracting hundreds of thousands of hits, and no doubt was used as a source by many reporters.

Then Amina was abducted, but by whom?  No one was sure although one of the many branches of the Syrian secret police or security services must have been involved – an online campaign to free her resulted.

However, it has been unmasked as a hoax, a complete fraud.

It was the work of a US student residing in Edinburgh, Tom MacMaster and possibly his partner Britta Froelicher (although MacMaster now claims it is his work alone).

Even the pictures of Amina were stolen from the Facebook page of a Croatian girl living in London who had no connection to the material being used on the blog.

MacMaster had the gall to explain his deception:  “While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on this blog are true and not misleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone – I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.”

There are many issues raised by such behaviour but I want to concentrate on just one:  The reliance of news sources where there is no legal or editorial safeguards to ensure a commitment to follow standards of integrity and professionalism.

Of course no news outlet is free of bias, but the issue with Citizenship Journalism is that those basic standards we expect from a news source might be there or not, through design or lack of it.

This is one reason why established media outlets such as national newspapers do not have to feel threatened when there seems to be others with greater access, speed or credentials disseminating news.