Media readership and influence is one of the most important elements of PR planning, but who is responsible for growing that influence? In this episode I interview Effie Kanyua, the Director of PR & Comms at publisher 'Hearst UK' which includes Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health and Women’s health, media titles many of us sell-in to! I ask Effie about her journey from agency consumer comms to her in-house role at one of the world's largest publishers and the flip of objectives in helping to grow media, rather than target it. We discuss; * How media consumption has changed in the last year * How Hearst media titles have had to adapt & change business objectives * What it means to drive readership to media * The importance of internal comms right now * And how the Hearst UK PR team measures multi-media PR for a diverse set of stakeholders Effie’s honesty and insight is fascinating. Whether you work agency or in-house this episode is for you. As always, let me know what you think @stellabayles on Twitter. Special Guest: Effie Kanyua .

PR Resolution podcast

Behind the scenes at Hearst UK; the PR team growing the most influential lifestyle media

In this episode I interview Anthony Hayes, founder of the Hayes Initiative, based in NYC. We discuss his experience of upholding ethics in public affairs PR, where responsibility lies in mis-information in the media and why following your heart in communications is so important. Hayes Initiative, a certified LGBTQ-owned and operated public affairs firm, was recently recognized with an honorable mention at the 2021 PRWeek Awards for “Best in Public Affairs”. This was for their work with Time's Up, a charity that supports victims of sexual harassment, and specifically those involved in the Harvey Weinstein case. Anthony has worked with charities, presidential candidates, members of the U.S. Cabinet, governors, elected officials, law enforcement officials, and high-ranking health and legal professionals… It’s safe to say he has experience in high-pressure and controversial comms. Anthony shares how PR professionals can bring crisis techniques into every strategy and how to ensure we, as an industry, are not known for fake-news or misinformation. This episode is for everyone in PR. Special Guest: Anthony Hayes .

Ethics & doing the right thing in PR

Understanding how people interact with news and media sites is essential in PR planning and measurement. It has been an on-going challenge in Public Relations to understand the true volume of people arriving on news sites due to publishers' secrecy on traffic figures. There was further focus on this topic recently, when UK news site, The Guardian reported that The Telegraph online is planning to link journalists’ pay to traffic and popularity of their articles. So, in this episode, I interview digital communications consultant Andrew Smith on his research into publisher traffic. We discuss: -How readers arrive at news stories -Where the traffic comes from and how they interact on-site -Publisher traffic growth strategies -How the ‘pay for views’ model could work and the problems that could come with this -Traffic and data tools available to journalists and PR people No matter what country or industry you practise PR in, this episode is relevant to you all. Special Guest: Andrew Smith .

The truth about news site traffic

Understanding your audience is the most important stage in developing PR strategy. It’s impossible to influence and change opinion without a full understanding of who you are talking to and how they feel. And with more data available than ever before, where on earth do you begin that kind of research? Step forward Alex Judd, Alex is the head of Impact and Planning at Clarity PR. Alex is passionate about combining the art of communications with the science of research and data. In this episode we discuss: The difference between researching B2B and B2C audiences What we can learn from advertising audience segmentation How avoid looking for insight in an echo chamber How to get buy in from stakeholders How to get started in you’re an audience insight beginner Special Guest: Alex Judd .

Who are you talking to?

In this episode Stella interviews Brendon Craigie, the co-founder and managing partner of Tyto. A global PR agency that uniquely has a team working across multiple communications disciplines and international borders, without physical offices. Brendon shares his experience in setting up and running a completely remote global PR agency, not because of lockdown restrictions but because their ‘PR without borders’ strategy truly engages local markets and delivers the best possible results for clients.  As we start 2021 with most PR agencies around the world working with pandemic-led restrictions, Craigie shares Tyto’s challenges but also huge successes in serving their global clients with a team of professionals located in 12 countries.  From team practicalities to VR client meetings, this may just be the PR agency structure of the future. Stella and Brendon discuss: * The deeper audience understaning of always leading comms on the ground of the location you're targeting * The danger of communications existing in an echo chamber * What technology and processes it takes for a completely remote global PR agency to work * How Tyto hired, manages and motivates a remote team of comms professionals Special Guest: Brendon Craigie .

PR without borders

In this episode Stella interviews Sarah Waddington, founder and curator of the FuturePRoof book series and discusses the latest edition, 'celebrating BME talent'. Stella and Sarah explore representation in Public Relations, from an inclusivity perspective on the communicators side but also our responsibility in truly understanding, connecting and relating to the public. As well as curating the FuturePRoof books, Sarah Waddington is managing director of Astute communications, an agency in the north of England. Sarah also led the CIPR's gender policy for many years, improved social mobility within the UK PR industry and is now on the advisory board of The Blueprint, which is part of BME PR Pro mentoring scheme. The discussion explores: - Diversity and representation in Public Relations - How organisations can attract, retain and nurture diverse talent - How PR can truly connect and relate to the public - Ethics in communications & how much responsibility lies with practitioners vs. media and social platforms Special Guest: Sarah Waddington .

Diversity in Public Relations

The second episode in our ‘public feeling’ mini-series, Stella Bayles interviews crisis communications expert, Amanda Coleman, on why understanding ‘how the public is feeling during a time of crisis’ is paramount to PR strategy. With 20 years' experience working in emergency services communication, Amanda Coleman is the former Head of Corporate Communications for Greater Manchester Police. During that time, Amanda managed the public communications during significant crises including the Manchester Arena terrorist attack in 2017 and riots in 2011. Public feeling insights were key to build the stages of communication. In this episode Stella and Amanda discuss; Why exploring risk is the best crisis preparation Understanding how your communication is landing with the public during a crisis and post, in recovery Who should be responsible for crisis communications Crisis comms is now arguably the most important area of PR in 2020. Whether you have your plan in place or just beginning to explore, Amanda’s advice is gold-dust. Special Guest: Amanda Coleman .

Understanding public feeling part 2: Crisis Communications

With huge adjustments in how we live and global events reaching us in real-time, there is constant change in public feeling. Whether it’s uncertainty, mistrust, frustration or comradery, understanding the way we, the public are feeling has never been so important in Public Relations. In this episode I speak to Stephen Waddington. Wadds is an advisor and consultant on communications, he has led the CIPR and authored multiple PR books including #BrandVandals, ShareThis and Brand Anarchy. He has spent over 25 years understanding the public and the most effective way organisations should understand and interact with audiences, build trust and grow by improving techniques and technologies. Wadds and I discuss: - How PR has understood target audience - How to understand the public, and not just the media that influences them - How it is possible to track public feeling - Where surveys, social and search listening fits into this This is the first podcast in a series I’ll be running on public feeling insight. Get in touch with thoughts and ideas @StellaBayles @Wadds Special Guest: Stephen Waddington.

Understanding public feeling (part 1)

'Share of voice' is a term used to describe how a brand is being talked about against it’s competitors. Share of voice is worked out very differently in Public Relations in comparision to other areas of marketing. This is mainly down to earned, owned and paid media all having different data and what we're allowed access to. At the end September 2020, Mark Ritson wrote an article for Marketing Week, which pitched why 'share of search' could be a better alternative measure of how popular a brand is among consumers. When I read the article, it struck me as a more sensible integrated way of looking at marketing success. However, I needed the help an expert to learn more! In this episode I interview marketing attribution expert, Russell McAthy, founder of Ringside to help us learn more. We explore: - What 'share of search' is - How it considers consumer view over the brand marketing teams! - How all of the marketing activity affects it - How PR teams can explore it If you do PR for a brand that also has lots of owned and paid marketing activity, this episode is for you. Special Guest: Russell McAthy.

Share of voice or share of search?

Public Relations professionals excel in storytelling. PR has also been known not to use data as well as other areas of marketing. So when I came across the wisdom of Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, the founder & CEO of storytelling with data, I had to interview her on the PR Resolution Podcast. Cole is the author of the best-selling book, ‘storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals’ and, through her courses has helped thousands of people around the world tell better stories with their data, but what does she think about PR data? In one of my favourite interviews to date, Cole and I explore; If naturally right-brain people can tell great data stories We cover the Barcelona Principles 3.0 updates & how it’s possible to communicate outputs & outcomes visually Why getting to know your report readers is SO important And why starting with data is actually the wrong place to begin your measurement journey.. Special Guest: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic.

storytelling with data

The PR industry has had to adapt to a huge change recently. Not only have many comms strategies had to change, we've never had a news agenda like this. In this episode I'm joined by news experts from 72Point, part of SWNS Media Group which is an independent press agency working directly with major news-desks in the United States and the UK. I interview Daniel Johnson-Kim and Rick Maughan, Heads of Editorial and Media Liaison at 72Point Inc, New York, to discuss the changes at the major news-desks and how to sensitively navigate them. Together, Daniel and Rick have more than 20 years experience in working with news desks in both the UK and USA. As well as Daniel being an ex journalist, designer and editor at The New York Daily News and News Corp, he and Rick now work alongside journalists and PR teams to help shape brand comms into news. We cover: How journalists are working during lock-down How to be a resource (not a nuisance) How to adapt sell-in tactics Tips on how to navigate news-desks Special Guests: Daniel Johnson-Kim and Rick Maughan.

How to sell in to news desks during a pandemic

Since the world went into lockdown, millions have turned to Amazon. The online retailer is due to release sales and profit figures on 30 April, however analysts have already forecast a sales increase of at least 22%. It’s been predicted that during the pandemic Amazon has experienced sales of $10,000 every second, day and night!! wow. Just before the pandemic was announced, I met Jim Hawker, co-founder of agency PR & marketing agency, Threepipe to find out about a new growth area for them; Amazon optimisation. It’s not a common skill-hire or PR service we talk about in the industry so I was keen to hear more. In this podcast interview Jim explains why Threepipe built a whole department just to focus on Amazon activity for their clients - How their PR tactics adapt in an Amazon strategy - Why Amazon is the new Google for FMCG brands - Where brand reputation comes into play in a new way - Why being bold IN TRYING new techniques doesn’t just build your clients business it can build an agency too This podcast was recorded just before COVID-19 hit in the UK and US, yet the insights Jim shares couldn’t be more relevant right now. Special Guest: Jim Hawker .

Why FMCG PR needs to be amazon-ready

It's 2020, integrated marketing is the norm, but could we be delivering better campaigns if we understood paid media better? In this episode I interview Shanna Apitz, the Executive Creative Director and head of innovation at Hunt Adkins, a paid media specialist agency in Minnesota. Having developed her career in the paid media space, Shanna has helped hundreds of US brands grow their business through interactive and integrated campaigns. I wanted to find out how a leading paid agency approach earned media, where Shanna thinks paid and PR fit in the marketing mix, how the two specialisms should work together, and how powerful an integrated campaign can be for a business. Special Guest: Shanna Apitz.

How PR should work with paid media

In this episode I step out of Public Relations and interview an expert in marketing measurement; Russell McAthy. Russell has been helping businesses attribute success (often revenue) to various lines of marketing for years. Without his insight into customer behaviour, millions in marketing budgets are likely to have been misspent. The term 'attribution' has come up a lot recently in PR recently so, I wanted to get back to basics. Russell and I cover what 'attribution' means, how PR fits into overall marketing evaluation and how you can talk about it to your stakeholders. Russell also tells me about how an update to cookie data happening in February 2020, that is going to make a MASSIVE difference to PR and paid, and we all need to know about it! Get ready to learn. Special Guest: Russell McAthy.

A simple guide to attribution with russell mcathy

We've seen a lot of development in comms techniques in 2019. However one area of digital marketing I didn't expect to hear in PR merging was affiliate marketing. That was until I interviewed Rich Leigh and Will Roberts at Radioactve Talent in December 2019. After that meeting, the marketing mix completely made sense! I went to their office to find out how they're bringing years of influencer and publisher knowledge from PR and merging it with Will’s expertise in online affiliate and revenue share deals. If you haven't heard of affiliates before, don't worry. The guys explain exactly how the process works for agencies, brands and influencers. Rich also also explains why, as a PR agency founder he is branching into this new growth area and why it's making their current clients very happy.

Should you be affiliate marketing in 2020?

Stella Bayles, co-founder of CoverageBook, hosts a new podcast for people in Public Relations. Stella explores a hot topic in each episode and with the help of an expert dispels any myths and breaks down the jargon. Summarised in plain language, this PR podcast is fun, informative and summarised in under 40 minutes, so you’re clued up as you hit the office.

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PR Resolution podcast

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