I was just thinking that running a PR business - or any business in fact - can be likened to running a theatre company. 

For a PR or marketing firm, you will have some clients on the public stage - doing their thing, presenting their companies and products to the world. You have some new business clients, waiting in the wings, ready to join in the production and shout about what they do. 

Of course, if you are a manufacturing business or a service company, you may have some products on stage, with a whole line of new products and services under development, waiting in the wings, until their time comes and they take centre stage.

We have a number of different audiences - some will be regular audiences who want to hear about the latest goings-on, on the stage. Some might come every night out of habit. Others could be new or irregular audiences, but they all want to be entertained with good, timely updates, accurate information, interesting and amusing anecdotes. They want to know who the latest players are - the biography of a new leading man or lady, for instance. Who are they, why are they here? What expertise and extra energy can they bring to the show? What part are they playing? 

So, you know what I'm going to say, don't you?  Yes - who is putting up the posters?  You might have the very best decor, front-of-house, seating, lighting, sound.. but unless those wonderful posters are up in the street outside, the audience might just be passing on by.

What you need is someone who knows where the audiences hang out, what special media they read, who exactly will be interested in hearing about your lovely play - or even if the play itself needs a slight re-write. 

Grab some attention for your business - and if you want some advice on where public relations and customer loyalty fit into the marketing mix, do get in touch.  

Good luck with your group's next performance!  Curtain up is just a day away. 

My first ever poem

I am racking my brains to recall to mind my first ever poem. I remember clearly writing it, carefully crafting every word, every line, with a spirit that came from ... where?  A sense of wonder at nature and a love of writing came together to produce something that I was so proud of, at the tender age of 8.

I had written my first story - typed out on a type-writer that I had requested for Christmas - at the age of 7.
But, this blog is not about the story (the Rock Fairy). That might be for another day.

In honour of my client, CPRE Hampshire's children's poetry competition - newly launched for 2014 - here is my first ever poem.


"Flowers".

Big flowers, small flowers,
Pink flowers, red,
All sorts of different flowers
In the flower bed.

Tulips from Holland
[Roses] from France
Do thistles come from Scotland?
Well, we've got a chance.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
...


That's all I can remember...  I do hope that I have kept it at home somewhere, so that I can share the whole poem with you!

If you know a child who has a sense of wonder at the natural world, and they can also dream and write, why not ask them to lay down a few lines in ink, and send it in to the team at CPRE Hampshire?  If it's good enough, why, even Sir Andrew Motion, the former Poet Laureate might well get to read it!

Thank you for reading.  Here is a link to the Competition

Keren.

Thinking of changing my Twitter handle

When I first went onto Twitter, I did so as an experiment, to teach myself how to use it.  In case I completely messed up, I was keenly aware that I would wish to do so 'incognito'.  One may laugh, now! I chose a username that sounded quite catchy, to show that I was trading as a PR consultant at Mainline Business Centre in Liss, East Hampshire.  MainlinePR was born.  Crucially, however, it was not my trading name, which had built up some reputation amongst my clients, colleagues and associates in the East Hampshire vicinity. The trading name for my business is, in fact, Compege - with the tagline 'ideas for competitive edge'. It has been a PR consultancy, and it now offers Customer Loyalty Management in addition to media relations.

Within a matter of weeks (or was it days?) I found that I had around 40 to 50 followers. Wonderful.  I was faced with an important choice - keep @MainlinePR or change the handle to @CompegePR?  I was still reluctant, at that point, to 'go public', and didn't relish the thought of losing the valuable followers and friends whom I had just made.  So there we are - fear stopped me from changing it.

And fear is what has kept me here so far.  At 1,048 followers at last count, I find myself in a dilemma.

My website has just been updated, and I am on the cusp of a new business plan. A colleague may well join me at the end of this year - sometime between November 2014 and February 2015; that is the plan. There are exciting chapters waiting to be written in the story of Compege.

I shall have to bite the bullet and shall almost inevitably change the Twitter handle to CompegePR.  The thing is, being an emotional old 'kinesthetic' kind of individual (thanks @Relationshiptraining for that insight!), I shall miss my dear @MainlinePR handle.

At the end of the day, will the change make any difference, be it negative, or positive?

What do you think?  What shall we do?  All feedback welcome - if you don't care, then that's fine by me.

Keren.