Online Media Centre, Press Centre, Newsroom – no matter what you call it, every brand and business needs a press-friendly presence online.
Our ‘Managing Your Digital Presence‘ white paper explains why companies need an Online Media Centre, and how having a dedicated site for all your media and PR content can help you take control of your communications and tell your story.
Download the white paper by filling out the form below.
Working at the heart of the UK’s 7th largest Core City, Bristol City Council aims to play a leading role in driving a city of hope and aspiration where everyone can share in its success.This involves coordination with hundreds of stakeholders alongside the commissioning and delivery of hundreds of services which form the fabric of everyday life in the city.
We spoke to Tim Borrett, head of policy and strategy (interim), about his use of Vuelio and how it has benefited the whole team.
The team is a former ‘Public Sector Team of the Year’ (Chartered Institute of Public Relations South of England and Channel Islands PRide Awards 2015) and was recently recognised as ‘Outstanding In-house Public Relations Team’ (Chartered Institute of Public Relations South of England and Channel Islands PRide Awards 2017). With this success comes high expectations and Vuelio plays a vital role in helping the team to meet them; ensuring the efficient targeting, management and delivery of news content directly to stakeholders and on the council’s digital platforms.
Vuelio is also used to track key subjects across the council’s £1bn+ annual investment in the city, identify new influencers and provide a key strand of corporate resilience in case of emergencies that affect its ICT infrastructure.
The Challenge
Life before Vuelio presented several challenges, particularly in terms of providing a resilient and consistent system of content distribution and issues tracking. The council was undergoing much transformative change, resulting in risks around changes in ICT systems and practice alongside the potential loss of corporate memory as colleagues moved on from the organisation.
Practice was good but lacked coordination, with time lost inputting news content across several platforms and manually filing content across a multitude of user-created filing structures. Vuelio provided opportunity to coordinate this and provide a solid, stable base for all content and live logging of issues and progress.
The Solution
From the outset, Vuelio offered a good opportunity to achieve quick wins in terms of logging activity and providing an easier form of management oversight. Its intuitive system and at-a-glance dashboard were immediately attractive, and these were supported with a range of powerful features and potential in other parts of the platform.
It became clear that no one else was able to provide such a diverse range of functionality in a single platform
It became clear that no one else was able to provide such a diverse range of functionality in a single platform, from database management and identifying new contacts to distributing and publishing content, Vuelio presented a simple all-in-one product that could dramatically reduce time spent for users shifting between systems and duplicating tasks.
From a management perspective, the ability to procure once and manage a single contract rather than the potential for several made good sense, particularly given the value-for-money achieved by having a single supplier.
The system has provided a really solid base for our media relations and activity tracking, along with delivering efficiencies by giving us the power to publish online at the click of a button, saving us rebuilding news stories in a separate CMS.
Benefits and Results
Along with the time saved by using an all-in-one distribution and publishing system (valued at approx. £2k staff time p/a), Vuelio has really benefitted us by ensuring people are sighted on each other’s work – significantly reducing duplication in dealing with media enquiries and making sure the whole team are up-to-speed on key topics. Alongside this, Vuelio has provided stronger, more convenient management oversight of activity and a robust audit trail for activity.
Another major benefit has been the improved resilience so that, more than once, the team has been able to continue its work during internal system outages. This has been vital in reducing risk, making us more confident in our ability to operate in case of in-house system outage and ensuring elements of the team’s practice, including a 24/7 emergency on-call service, can be handled efficiently with staff having access to comprehensive, up-to-date information.
We are regularly able to identify new contacts to whom we can pitch relevant stories, helping us improve our reach beyond the city; something which is valuable as the city and its council continue to establish stronger national and global relationships.
Vuelio is as fundamental for our team as a smartphone or laptop.
Bristol City Council uses Vuelio Stakeholder Management and Online Media Centre. Read the full testimonial here, or find out how you can save time, achieve quick wins and thrive with Vuelio integrated services.
While you’re probably not fighting the upside down at work, there’s still plenty we can take from the Stranger Things gang to apply to our everyday PR practices.
*WARNING – mild spoilers lurk ahead, though Stranger Things 2 has been out long enough for everyone to have watched it multiple times over. Totally Tubular!*
1. ‘Mornings are for coffee and contemplation’ – Hopper
You’ve probably checked your emails all the way into work, and once you hit your desk you’re swamped – digging your way through your inbox until it once again has some semblance of sanity. When you first get in take a breather, talk to your colleagues and plan the day ahead – everyone is their most alert and this period of ‘contemplation’ can produce the best creative ideas.
2. ‘Friends don’t lie’ – Eleven (and others)
Working as a team is vital for public relations. While it may seem that you have a different story to tell different stakeholders – and often you do – making sure you’re consistent with your allies lets them pull in the same direction. To make this simple, Vuelio Stakeholder Management allows you to track who in your team has said what and to whom, so everyone is on the same page.
3. ‘Class, please welcome, all the way from sunny California, the latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage: Maxine!’ – Mr Clarke
How many teachers would take a call from a child at 10pm to help build a sensory deprivation tank? Mr Clarke is keen to encourage his class to push boundaries and think outside the box. Too often in a PR organisation the most senior directors are pulling the team. Great concepts and knowledge can come from anywhere (including the ‘kids’), and the best agencies push their teams, encouraging ideas no matter what the source is.
4. ‘Nobody normal ever accomplished anything meaningful in this world.’ – Jonathan
Being different and unique is the best way to stand out for both you and your client. It may seem like obvious advice, but don’t always do what’s been done before, don’t stick to accepted wisdom and don’t be normal. Floating something large down the Thames caught everyone’s attention the first time, but it’s now become a norm. Find something new and keep pushing boundaries.
5. ‘I am on a curiosity voyage, and I need my paddles to travel. These books are my paddles.’ – Dustin
Research, research, research. In-house have a distinct advantage here, they should know their brand, product and service inside out. Agencies have to work twice as hard to fully integrate themselves with the client before being able to effectively communicate on their behalf. Sector specific content and finding the right influencers is vital to understanding the company, the company’s aims and the company’s target audience. Research can also predict potential pitfalls along the way, so there is no excuse to end up curiosity creek without a paddle.
6. ‘I may be a pretty s**tty boyfriend, but turns out I’m actually a pretty damn good babysitter.’ – Steve
No you’re desperate to fit Steve into this article. To be honest there were lots of golden Steve moments that could have made the list, but his character arc from confused jock boyfriend to solid advice-wielding parental figure is both heart-warming and spot on. If you find out you’re good at something, there’s no shame consistently being excellent at it. That doesn’t mean you don’t ever leave your comfort zone (see: Steve in the tunnels surrounded by Demadogs), but playing to your strengths is a no-brainer, even if that means staying on the bench to save the day.
What other PR lessons can we take from Stranger Things? Post your comment below.
Our latest white paper, The Filth and the Fury, explores how innovative disruptors – from Uber to Amazon – are managing their reputations in a media world built for traditional businesses.
After Uber’s recent licence issue with Transport for London, a new spotlight is on the reputationally-troubled company for its practices and position in society. While Uber’s fans are legion, it hasn’t publically received the support a successful business might expect to enjoy.
Our whitepaper looks at why the mainstream media often targets disruptors and in turn what they’re doing to defend themselves. Though negative stories are sometimes deserved, there’s mounting evidence that the press has it in for the new kids on the block.
But does it matter?
The white paper also explores whether having a bad reputation in the media is bad for the whole company or if the right strategy is to look after your customers first.
If you’d like to learn more the benefits of disruptive PR, download our whitepaper by clicking here.
And if you think you’re ready to embrace disruptive PR, find out more about what Vuelio can do for you.
We all know the big disruptors, and not always for the right reasons. But with so much bad press, how do these giants thrive?
By ripping up the rulebook and giving the people what they want!
Our latest white paper, ‘The Filth and The Fury: Disruptive Businesses & Destructive PR – Who Cares?‘ explores disruptive businesses and PR – helping you to disrupt your own market.
Download the white paper now.
The PRWeek Awards celebrated its 30th anniversary last night in true 80s’ style. Vuelio were delighted to partner this historic event and celebrate alongside 1,000 guests and 33 winners.
PRWeek’s editor Danny Rogers then introduced the evening’s event, explaining how the nature of PR has changed as we’ve entered the age of stakeholder marketing. He then introduced a very special presentation.
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, took everyone by surprise when he arrived to induct his friend and colleague Alan Edwards into PR Week’s Hall of Fame. Edwards is the founder and chairman of Outside Organisation, and has over 40 years’ experience working with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Prince and David Bowie.
Edwards’ was the first of many awards on the night, which were presented by Katherine Ryan. The Canadian comedian kept the audience entertained with a hilarious routine, outrageous comments and the occasional sing song.
The biggest prizes on the night, two Gold Awards for Consultancy of the Year and In-House Team of the Year, were won by Weber Shandwick and English Heritage respectively. There’s also a special mention for Iris, who won the Vuelio-sponsored Best Influencer Marketing Campaign award for its Adidas Glitch launch.
Social media was ablaze throughout the evening, with #PRWeekAwards quickly shooting to the top of Twitter’s trending topics in the UK, such was the reach of a room of the best PR professionals in the business. We’ve gathered the our favourite posts from across all forms of social media and online stories to make a dedicated Vuelio Canvas, the simple tool that easily tells your PR story.
Click here to see the full PRWeek Canvas.
I love conflict. For me, healthy conflict is an important part of any working relationship. It appears, however, that I’m not alone in this thinking. In fact, a very clever chap, Patrick Lencioni, defined the five characteristics of a highly effective team. The second characteristic is, healthy conflict.
Having just been part of a team that went through the formal training associated with Lencioni’s theory, I started thinking about whether this theory could and should be applied to client relationships.
No matter how much we strengthen our internal team’s relationships, we’ll ultimately not move forward with enough pace if our client relationships don’t improve as well. If I’m soiling myself every time conflict arises between a client and I then know something is not quite right.
So, how do we go about building a healthy relationship with our clients?
According to Lencioni, highly functional teams have the following characteristics:
I think as an industry, we get this right internally a lot more than we give ourselves credit. We tend to be more comfortable with trust and feedback than other professions and everyone knows how much we love to slap each other’s backs – just look at how many awards there are out there. But when looking at these characteristics through the lens of a client relationship, things become a little more troublesome.
I’m going to flip these five pillars of a strong team and turn them into their dysfunctional cousins. What’s more, I’ll try and describe the dysfunctions from the perspective of a client relationship.
Can you spot a dysfunctional characteristic within these five? If so, it might be worth going back to the characteristic before the one you seem to be having a problem with. If you’re suffering from a lack of healthy conflict with a client, it might be because neither of you trust each other enough.
I can’t tell you how to improve your client relationships, only you will know the necessary detail to make specific changes. However, this piece should serve as a guide for potentially spotting opportunities for improvement and identifying which areas may need some work.
Do invest some time reading Patrick’s book and in your next team building session, have a think about whether what you learnt could be applied to your clients as well as each other.
[testimonial_view id=2]
Do you feel as if you’re wasting vital time at your job? How much time do you spend on tasks without knowing just how, exactly, they contribute to your work?
Everybody wastes some time at work. A study by Sharp Europe revealed that 34% of respondents had fallen asleep in meetings, which says a lot about the value of those meetings. Meanwhile, chief financial officers told a survey by recruiter Robert Half that 17% of their time spent on work email is wasted.
Our new tipsheet: “How PRs Can Stop Wasting Time at Work” looks at some of the clever ways in which PRs can eliminate time-wasting tasks from their day-to-day activities and focus on their what matters most in their job – connecting with their audience.
Download our tipsheet now and discover how you can get rid of the biggest time-wasters at work and become more efficient through the use of technology and automation.
