Study - what do Journalists expect from good PR

If you want to do good PR and Media Networking it is useful to know how journalists think,
what do they want and what you have to do in order to work with them in an efficient way.

This topic is the focus of the Journalism study. They interviewed over 270 journalists about their needs and values and presented some interesting results.

For example:

- what do journalists expect from a PR person in times of Web 2.0
- how to they want to have the press material (press releases, pictures...)
- how should you structure Online-PR

NGO Advertising - Amnesty International

This could be an interesting field for the ones of you that are into NGOs (like AEGEE) and want to see, how the professionals do their NGO Advertising.

This is a clip of Amnesty international - fits also the context of the "Media and Citizenship Seminar" that I have been to last month.

Political Advertising in Web 2.0 - Obama Girl versus Hillary Clinton

I just found this entry on PRBlogger. It seems like the US Top Politicians discovered the Internet for their PR and advertising purposes. Both of the Candidates for the next US Election have posted a more or less viral video in the internet.

That one of Hillary Clinton is situated in a Restaurant where she discusses with Bill about their next plans and advertises her election song from Celine Dion - not very funny, but if it fits the target group and creates interest, it is ok.

The other one of Obama is more interesting - I posted it here. Actually it is not from the political himself, it is a advertising campaign for an internet portal in form of a fan video. This example shows again how you can frame the media and use the potential of the Internet to spread your message. It captured immediately the attention of the media – the Chicago Tribune's wrote:

"The music video [...] put the Obama camp in an odd position. True, the woman in the music video is clearly declaring Obama "the best candidate," arguably a message they'd like to see going viral on the Web.

Trouble is, she's half-naked while lip-syncing Obama's praises and she's also warmly kissing his photograph, yet another reminder that candidates have less and less control of their images and messages when everybody has bandwidth.

To be sure, the campaigns are happy to use venues like YouTube as low-cost alternatives to expensive television ads and mailings. But when the barrier to entry is as low as the click of a mouse, there's no way for them to control where their images go or how they are used."

Here is what the media says about the campaign



Here is the original video - has some good viral potential



Of course Obama Girl has also her own MySpace Account - maybe also a good PR Tool...

Political Marketing in Web 2.0 - Tony Blairs YouTube Broadcast

One thing I learned during the Media and Citizenship Seminar in Ireland is that Business Professionals can learn a lot from political professionals such as Tony Blair. During one of our Media Sessions, our trainer Lorenzo Nava used Tony Blair as an example, to explain how media professionals use their communication and media skills to frame news in the way they want and to market themselves and their ideas using this powerful method of communication.

It is also interesting to see, how Blair starts to use other means of communication such as YouTube to get his messages across and how he uses the potential of the Internet to talk to his "customers". Maybe we could adopt the same in Germany?

Follow Up Media and Citizenship Seminar Ireland

I am just back from my two week journey to Ireland. Again we were around 30 professionals from all over Europe, discussing about different matters of NGOs, Media, PR and Project Management.

The Seminar itself was quite interesting – here is the description:

Media and Citizenship is divided into three parts, the first part "Strategic Planning" will provide participants with the knowledge and know-how for creating effective and long-lasting communication actions. Participants will learn to implement successful communication and activities to improve their local realities.

The second part is mostly made up of simulation workshops where participants will be asked to work on one media project.

Participants will learn how to effectively plan press releases, communication campaigns, press conferences and attract the attention of the media on particular issues, and at the same time how to effectively and strategically plan both short and long term actions for the improvement of their local realities.

The training gave a lot of knowledge and information on how to use different tools and means of communication to spread your message to different target groups in very efficient ways. Also the Media part was very interesting, it teached me how biased and manipulative different ways of media communications can be and what an NGO or Company should do, to use this knowledge in an ethical way. Finally the group and the trainers were very professional and I look forward for future meetings and cooperation.

Follow Up AEGEE TV Media School in Eindhoven

As you may have read, I participated at the AEGEE Media School organized by AEGEE TV and AEGEE Eindhoven. I have to say it was a really great event – thanks to all the organizers, trainers and participants.

The setting of European Students Week (which had over 320 students from all the world as participants) was perfect, cause we had a great training ground to practise our new movie making skills. The movies we made (around 20) should be soon at http://www.aegee.tv/ - they are really worth watching, this I can promise ;->.

As a result of the Project sessions we also came up with some future project ideas for AEGEE TV. The ideas were about improving the PR of AEGEE with movies, about Video Journalism and about an
AEGEE TV Summer University (you can download the notes about the ideas here).

I liked especially the idea about making a “corporate” AEGEE movie, that we can show to students (for getting them interested in AEGEE and recruiting them) and to companies (to promote AEGEE, it’s values and to raise funds).

All we would need for that would be:
1. a script & storyboard
- what things should be in the movie
- who should be in the movie
- how long should it be (3minutes?)
- what core messages should be conveyed (AEGEE USP)
2. a budget
3. a motivated team with time and proper equipment

Lets see what happens in the future with this ideas…

Movie Making in the Netherlands

Right now I am at the AEGEE TV Media School in the Netherlands.

Here is the description of the event:
.......................................................
Well, if you ever wanted to learn how to make movies, then we have good news for you! AEGEE-Eindhoven in collaboration with AEGEE.tv organizes the next Media School!

We will teach you all the basics of movie-making - from script writing to camera handling and editing. We will provide you with all the necessary equipment as well.

After the training weekend you will spend another five days making your own movies during the biggest European student event in Europe, the European Week Eindhoven, where hundreds of European students (including YOU!) will have the time of their life.
.......................................................

Take a look at http://www.aegee.tue.nl/ms2007/ to see what we are doing there.

The Movies will be soon online at http://www.aegee.tv/.