Unless you have been hidden under a rather large rock over the last twelve months you can’t have missed the splash that the Official CIPR Social Media Handbook “Share This” has made in the PR community.
As I live in the freezing cold north of England and my agency’s HQ is in Leeds I don’t tend to get to as many conferences these days as I would like and so I read a lot of books and online media on digital marketing. I bought “Share This” a while back because I wanted to find a book that offered practical advice rather than something that is full of speculative theory and far too much naval gazing. I also wanted to find a book to recommend to my team members and the interns we have in the office because there wasn’t one specific title that offered all of this. The one thing I hated about social media books was the need to add statistic after statistic on how much it was growing as we all already know that and if you didn’t just Google the word “Infographic”. Personally, I felt that PR people wanted practical advice that would help them at work with their clients as many good PRs don’t have enough time to read everything like us in the PR blogosphere.
I read most of it over a few days and I was really impressed as I felt it was useful for someone moving into the Digital PR space as it gave a number of different tips and perspectives. I was so impressed with a couple of chapters that I contacted the authors (most of which I knew from Twitter etc) to tell them about the bits that I liked the best. It actually gave me the idea to interview each of the writers personally in 2013 which I plan to do – so stay tuned for that. Well a few weeks ago it was announced that a new book is being created and the official announcement stated:
Share This Too will feature more than 35 contributors, including many of those from the first book. Several of the contributors are successful authors in their own right. The content will build on the themes in the first book, probing deeply into what is current in the theory, delivery and evaluation of 21st century public relations and organisational communication.
The original handbook, published in July 2012 and which has sold over 2000 copies, includes insights and practical guidance on how professional communicators can utilise social media and networks and platforms to engage directly in conversation with audiences. It is available to purchase in hardcopy, eBook and Kindle format, from Amazon and Wiley.com. Chapter One, An Introduction to Social Networks by Katy Howell, is available to download in PDF format from the CIPR website.
I am proud to reveal that I am part of a team of more than 35 writers which includes some of the best minds and practitioners in the Digital PR space. I would like to personally thank Stephen Waddington for offering me the opportunity to get involved.The list includes the likes of Wadds himself, Rob Brown, Dominic Burch, Robin Wilson, Simon Sanders, Ged Carroll, Kate Matlock, Adam Parker, Mark Pack, Sharon O’Dea, Paul Fabretti, Michael Litman, Russell Goldsmith, Daljit Bhurji, Stephen Davies, Scott Seaborn, Dan Tyte, Matt Appleby, Kevin Ruck, Hanna Basha, Chris Norton, Becky McMichael, Rachel Miller, Stuart Bruce, Richard Bailey, Jane Wilson, Julio Romo, Jed Hallam, Katy Howell, Gemma Griffiths, Philip Sheldrake, Richard Bagnall, Drew Benvie, Andrew Smith and Simon Collister
I will be covering Online Crisis Management and my thoughts and experiences on how to deal with it. I will also be hosting a special and free seminar in early 2013 on Online Crisis Management too, so if you fancy hearing about that drop me a line and I will try and get you a place reserved.
If you had one bit of advice to give PR people on Online Crisis Management what would yours be? I am always interested to hear what you guys think.
Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.
