The Spark

Free PR ideas and inspiration from LinkedIn

Let’s ease into The Spark gently this month with a quick win. Do you follow ‘Public Relations’ on LinkedIn? 840,000 people do and there are plenty of good reasons to join them.

Recent, collaborative AI-powered articles cover tricky topics like, How do you know if your PR tools work?, How can you align influencers with your brand values?, and How do you overcome common risks when planning PR events?

At each juncture there’s an opportunity to add your own perspective, thus contributing to the mass of helpful information to hand.

Katie Mallinson, director of communications

What is your audience really thinking?

Totting up press coverage and calculating its PR value has long been central to reporting to clients on the impact of media relations activity.

But this falls short of getting into the minds of the people reading, watching, or hearing about your business. Here’s an interesting article and webinar from Metricomm about the potential for better audience engagement measurement, an area that is developing fast, thanks to AI.

Kat Plant, client relations manager

Picking up Threads

Well, Meta’s Threads launched this month and picked up 100 million users more quickly than any other app. Have you joined yet?

As we all find our feet with the platform, commentators have bemoaned both its lack of visual appeal when compared with Instagram, and the political bite that has long made its flagging rival Twitter so compelling.

In the meantime here’s a handy summary about the business benefits of using Threads for SMEs, from business journalist Jodie Cook.

Grace Lenihan, account director

Staying ahead of the circularity curve

PR professionals are creating more content than ever, explaining and extolling their companies’ environmental credentials.  

This demonstrates that individual businesses are taking their carbon responsibilities seriously, and every blog, press release, social media post or video clip contributes to wider awareness of the many and varied challenges at hand.

But are you confident that you’re focusing on the latest issues, and using the right terminology? Here’s an argument that we should forget sustainability, the overused buzzword of the last few years, and turn our collection instead to the concept of circularity.

Alice Kelly, international communications manager

Horizon scanning as a top priority

Regular readers of The Spark are used to having cool new ways of doing things pointed out. This is great but there has to be a structure and a strategy for what to use and how.

We loved this thoughtful rundown of tech trends from Raconteur which is not a list of apps and other tools, but a reminder that senior communicators need to be taking an informed and decisive overview on the innovation their teams should be spending time and money on.

Rosie Holt, copywriter 

An afternoon at All Leads 2023

In July, we attended Force24’s All Leads 2023 Summer Conference with sister company The Bigger Boat to delve deeper into the world of email marketing as well as gain insight into what the experts had to say about SEO, creative best practice and brand purpose. For those in search of the top takeaways from the event, whether you’re looking for tips on your content marketing strategy or want to get to grips with creator generated content, head over to our latest blog. 

Bethany Lunt, account manager