The Business of Manufacturing, a Question Time style debate on the future of UK manufacturing, chaired by Peter Marsh of the Financial Times, attracted lots of media attention last week. With some high-profile business leaders on the panel, including Juergen Maier of Siemens and James Averdieck, founder of Gu Chocolate Puds, the event created plenty of incisive comment on the prospects for growth in manufacturing and engineering rebalancing the national economy.

Working with the debate’s organisers, Marketing Leeds and Leeds Manufacturing, Appeal helped broaden media interest in the story by creating a video that provided an informative summary of the event, featuring interviews with the speakers. The video was used on TheBusinessDesk.com, to generate greater depth and interest to the Business Desk’s report on event.

It seems that news releases that include video content achieve three times more coverage than releases don’t have multimedia content.  The research showed that for those releases with editorial or blog coverage, the average number of pieces was 17.1 for the releases with video content.  This was almost three times the figure for the sample without video content of 6.2 and four-and-a-half times more than the distribution industry average of 3.8 pieces.

The latest technology has made it relatively simple and cost-effective to produce online video which can be quickly uploaded onto YouTube – the second most popular search engine.  Video enables a story to really stand out and has the viral benefit of online sharing, giving it a wider reach and longer lifespan than a traditional story in print.

The use of online video is continuing to grow as are the number of outlets wanting it, making it a great time for businesses to experiment and really differentiate themselves.

Here’s a recent online video we’ve produced for one of our forward-thinking clients, JCT600.

The United Bank of Carbon (UBoC) is the brainchild of Jonathan Wild, former chairman and chief executive of Bettys and Taylors Group. Having spent much of his career leading a company with strong links to the tropics through its tea and coffee growers, Jonathan was ahead of the times, investing in environmental initiatives long before the concept became popular.

Twenty years ago Jonathan started a campaign to engage customers in support the company’s environmental projects. Since then, Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate has succeeded in planting three million trees across the globe and its latest mammoth undertaking is to support a UBoC project that is working to save a rainforest in Peru which is the size of the Yorkshire Dales.

The Bettys & Taylors name has become synonymous with green initiative s and ethical trading and there can be little doubt that its phenomenal success as a business owes much to the place it has won in the hearts of its customers and staff as a result.

Anyone who has met Jonathan will know that his conviction is contagious. Having listened to him explain his vision to a journalist, we immediately offered our services on a pro bono basis to support UBoC’s communications needs. Working with Jonathan and fellow trustee, Professor Piers Forster of the University of Leeds, we have re-launched a brand new website for the organisation to showcase its achievement so far and encourage more businesses to join the collaboration.

The re-designed website now focuses on the motivations that have driven supporters’ involvement. It is not necessarily a case of ticking the corporate social responsibility box, it may that supporters gain benefits through improved employee engagement and customer loyalty or they may be thinking of the future potential of carbon credits. The reason for involvement doesn’t matter, what is important is the fact that leading companies such as Deloitte, Bibby Line Group, Straight plc, Premier Farnell and DDB believe that they have something to gain from their investment.

With PR ‘greenwash’ receiving much criticism in recent years, supporting UBoC is an easy way in which businesses can make a genuine contribution to protecting our world. Surely the success of Bettys & Taylors, a £103m business and blender of Yorkshire tea, the third largest tea brand in the UK, is proof that investing in the environment really is a sound commercial investment.

In the past, many businesses have been deterred by complex and time-consuming production along with prohibitive costs.  However, the advance of social media together, together with camera technology, has made it an ideal time for businesses to experiment.  Existing media relations campaigns can be complemented with an online video which can be produced for a similar cost to a stills press shot and hosted on YouTube – still the leading brand for video streaming.

Figures show that online video usage is a huge area of internet growth.  In October 2009, Nielsen reported a 25 per cent increase in online video viewing year on year  and the trend is continuing – January 2011 saw annual usage in the US increase by 45 per cent. In February, there were a staggering 139.2 million unique US online video viewers who streamed 13.6 million videos and spent an average of 4 hours, 20 minutes viewing video.

With online media such as TheBusinessDesk.com requesting that businesses submit video releases, it’s a great way of getting more profile for your story.  What’s more, Google loves video so it will also give valuable search engine optimisation benefits.

Many businesses remain cautious, with the old days of hugely expensive corporate videos still too fresh in their minds.  However, for innovative companies (particularly those who have succeeded in building up a strong social media presence) there are huge benefits to be reaped.  Here’s the latest online video we’ve produced for one of our forward-thinking clients, JCT600.

I was glad to see an article in New Media Age which I thought was worth sharing with other perplexed parents as it officially recognises this Y generation phenomenon. 

According to research carried out by marketing agency Digital Clarity, it seems that 80 per cent of the 1,300 under 25s surveyed use social networks while watching TV, with 72 per cent commenting specifically on programmes via social networks.  Unsurprisingly, the most popular networks were Twitter (72 per cent) and Facebook (56 per cent).  The shows most widely commented on were teenage cult programmes such as X Factor, Skins and Glee as well as the enduring soaps Coronation Street and Eastenders.

Yet another reminder that the consumers of tomorrow will have a completely different way of communicating with the world, effortlessly engaging with a host of media simultaneously  while we digital immigrants struggle to work out how to record on the hard drive…

 Overused pun aside, my name is Jon, I’m on professional placement here at Appeal PR and I will be guest blogging.

Amongst the top ten fastest rising search terms of 2010 was, of course, Justin Beiber. The teenager’s meteoric rise to stardom is reflected in how rapidly his name managed to clamber into the top ten. Alongside this, September 2010 saw Justin accounting for 3 per cent of all tweets on twitter. However, despite his phenomenal ascent and the fact that the iPad topped the fastest rising searches of 2010 ahead of him; Facebook is very much in control of the top ten searched terms list overall. This isn’t all that surprising when you consider that Facebook is now more popular than all of Google’s sites combined.

Facebook, procrastination tool of many, young and old alike, remains a stronghold of social connection. The social tool has extended its grasp beyond merely the computer monitor; it can now permeate your smart phones, your normal mobile phones and even Xbox Live. Users can post to the site from other websites, sharing blog posts and other pieces of information. Facebook has slowly settled in to the bedrock of our communications and taken hold. This can most evidently be seen in the newly announced ‘non-mail’ which hopes to centralise all SMS, MMS, e-mail and IM messages into one hub: Facebook. It’s a bold venture that aims to consolidate all written communication, save snail mail, into one delivery point. This could have some implications ranging from embarrassing, as you realise that you sent a text meant for your spouse to your boss; to confusing. You can thank Mark Zuckerman for proposing eliminating subject lines.

This could also have some frustrating implications as Facebook is just one more segment of an individual’s digital fingerprint. However, the more advancements that Facebook makes, the more of a person’s information is gathered and brought to a single place. Sites such as 4chan, are prime examples. Their members are renowned for being able to gather a person’s full retinue of personal details from their first and last names, should anyone be foolish enough to provide them. This was before the era when information was as coalesced as Facebook, think about how easy this will make it now.

As if that wasn’t enough to unsettle the mind, more recently data collection from third party applications on Facebook has been in the realms of home addresses and phone numbers. People went ex-directory with their phone number for a reason! I’m sure they don’t want cold calling as a result of Facebook of all things.

Social media such as Facebook having become such an integral part of our lives over the past five years, it potentially offers businesses the opportunity of reaching out to its member base of 500 million people. A business account and a group are easy ways to tap into Facebook’s considerable traffic. A planned approach to content that goes out onto Facebook and linking it with twitter posts and blog entries would seem an effective means of ensuring the social media being utilised would be effective and a working synergy would exist between them all.

Does this mean that because Facebook has an already gargantuan lead on traditional media’s reach that traditional media itself should not be capitalised on? Well, as social media goes mobile, it seems to be that the over 50s are accessing social media, including Facebook, more and more through their mobiles, up to three times more likely to do so than people under 30. This will definitely impact businesses looking to reach specific target audiences and also make hanging onto more traditional media a sensible option.

Looking back at the advances made since the turn of the millennium, it brings to mind the prospects of the next decade as it takes its baby steps. In light of the uncertainty, ‘What is around the corner?’ becomes a more pressing question and so does this: Is Facebook going to be worth channelling effort into for reaching your target audiences?

-          Shock, horror, Facebook set to decline!  One of the findings (backed up by other surveys) is that we are likely to start to see a decrease in the popularity of the ubiquitous social media site as many teenagers now consider it to be, like uncool, as it has been hi-jacked by the over 30s, mainly their parents!

 -          A massive increase in multiplayer online games is expected and, along with larger numbers of users, there will be more brands looking to this medium as a way of engaging with mass audiences.  Korea’s Dungeon Fighter Online holds the current record for simultaneous participation with 2.2m people!

 -          In terms of mobile, it is predicted that a smartphone for less that $200 (£64) will soon be launched as Asian manufacturers having already rolled-out entry-level handsets in Africa and Asia

 -          Don’t worry if pushing the button on the remote is too much like hard work, next year a new device is due to hit the couch potato market.  Known as a ‘brush TV’, it will allow viewers to change channels just by moving in a certain way, and is an extension of Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect

 -          Interestingly, with the growth of e-books, there are fears that piracy will hit the publishing world in much the way it has devastated music and film

 -          And one last worrying thought, with online video now making up more than half of US internet traffic, there are very real concerns that gadgets like the iPad may actually lead to a cyber catastrophe with the entire internet imploding due to the sheer volume of traffic…

You can also find some more interesting predictions in this blog from Tamar.

We’re often asked by clients what subjects they should blog about.  While the main objective is, of course, to get your message across, a key factor in choice of topic should also be whether customers are likely to be searching for these keywords.  Like websites, blogs are indexed, categorised and ranked, and offer a great opportunity to boost your SEO rankings.

So, apart from keeping your finger on the pulse and being aware of the current trends in your particular industry (the trade media is a good source of ideas for hot issues), also make the most of Google analytics which will show you which of your blogs have been the most read and which terms readers are using to search.  For example, a recent blog about the use of competitions to drive traffic to websites was one of Appeal’s most read blogs last month.

There is no quick fix to establishing a successful blog and benefitting from the associated SEO advantages.  It’s a question of working hard and working smart.  Effective blogging requires an ongoing commitment to posting regularly and consistently on topic.  This will enable you to build up a substantial bank of blogs and increase your chance of attracting good web traffic through long tail keywords (these are the less predictable, unique search terms; and basically the more content on your blog, the greater the likelihood of hitting them).

One of our competitors recently took the concept of ‘working smart’ a stage further and took advantage of Appeal PR’s high search ranking by linking to an article on social media in Insider and tagging the names of all of the PR consultancies mentioned within it!  Clever, ballsy or unethical?  To me, integrity is a vital part of doing business and the same principles of professionalism should be applied whatever the task.  Social media and blogging are based on the principles of transparency and reciprocity rather than using someone else’s success for quick personal gain, but then again, maybe we should be flattered…

But what does it mean for the spin-off digital benefits of traditional PR coverage that we have come to see as ‘normal’. These include are online references, additional archive shelf life (I was quoted in a 2004 article that still gets comments from people) SEO benefits and viral spread of articles as in addition to the printed articles.

For years, The Sunday Times’ business pages have been the ‘holy grail’ of PR coverage for many clients.  This is still going to be the case for many, but surely the removal of almost all the online benefit of the article is going to dampen enthusiasm for coverage in the title over time?

I know that one of our accounts – fashion sales website TheFashionPixie.com that we run from our office here, sees a great many articles in print and online. 

It has featured in The Sun, The Scotsman, City AM and a myriad of regionals and hundreds of online publications. 

It was featured in The Sunday Times in December last year, and that resulted in over 1,000 visits to the website  in a day.  Last week, the website was featured again in a similar article on saving money on fashion, the impact on traffic this time? Nil.

It remains to be seen what will happen with the paywall, but one thing is for sure, the benefits of online PR with titles behind a paywall are changing, and not for the better.

If our clients want to be featured in print articles read by the country’s high spenders and business elite then we will still be putting the Sunday Times at the top of our target list.

But if our clients are seeking online media coverage to assist with web traffic, as many now do, we won’t be seeing the Sunday Times as a tier one target while there are other national media that don’t have a paywall and can, therefore, deliver the long tail benefits of digital media coverage.