Reg grazes on tender Loynes (part 1)

The Register is a publication that still strikes fear into the heart of many PR people, especially in-house PR people at IT companies. It’s odd that The Reg carries such a reputation because its reporting is first class. But therein lies its problem with many hand-wringing PR and IT execs. The Reg knows its stuff, has an opinion and delivers it in a fabulously readable way. After all, 6.5 million readers can’t be wrong.

So I was delighted to be invited to The Reg’s Leicester Square HQ to chat about PR. Needless to say, I was as grown up as them, and freely admitted that the vast majority of PR people are not very good. And, I ventured, the same can be said of journos. Nods all round. Grown ups.

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Is Facebook a better way for SMEs to find customers than a regular website?

With all the hoo-hah around the Facebook IPO last week it’s tempting to forget that one of the reasons investors were willing to part with their cash is that Facebook not only enables you to keep up with the lives for friends and family but it can be a pretty useful tool for business too. 

So, could a Facebook page on the social networking site be more useful to you than your own SME website?

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It’s here, it’s there it’s every ******* where - the many headed hydra that is Facebook

Pinterest.  Mums sharing cat pictures and ‘inspirational posters’ – I can’t be doing with it (unless you’re a client, of course, not trying to reach curmudgeonly people like me  then I love Pinterest and we should build it in to every campaign). It’s not the format of Pinterest that I take exception to, it’s a good idea, it’s just the thought of having to deal with another social network and those ‘pin it’ buttons.

There are too many social networks doing too many different things in too many different ways and places. Google+ does what Facebook does but with more granular controls, Pinterest is an easy alternative to Flickr and remember Color? I have no clue what that was for, but I was on it. I could go on…

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Celebs, smoked salmon and B2B PR

Occasionally B2B PR throws you a curve ball, whisking you into a celebrity-studded consumer environment you could scarcely have seen coming a few days before.

For two Chameleons (George and Sian), the acquisition of a private ambulance service by healthcare client Westhouse Medical, began an A-list littered journey to the Channel 5 studios near Notting Hill, London.

The ambulance company specialise in bariatric (obese patients) transfer, drawing the advances of a Channel 5 documentary on obesity in the UK.

Shortly before the first episode aired, the producers of Live with Gabby – a day-time chat show hosted by the occasional Match of the Day presenter Gabby Logan – invited two of the featured paramedics to talk about the series.

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Supporting the New Horizon Youth Centre (NHYC)

Chameleon PR has been working to support the New Horizon Youth Centre (NHYC). Our CEO Helen Holland recently completed the Paris marathon with all donations going to the the charity and we have been working to support the charity’s second annual Comedy Benefit.

We really are getting quite excited and on the 14th May, Jon Snow and Ed Byrne, along with other acclaimed acts such as Rory Bremner, Stewart Francis and Mitch Winehouse will take to the stage for what promises to be a great evening. Don’t worry none of the so-called office comedians will be allowed anywhere near the stage!

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