Media relations are only one part of Public Relations. An important one, admittedly, but whether you want to raise your profile, build your brand, or position yourself in the market, there’s one audience you can’t afford to overlook: Industry analysts.

Why? Because analysts are key influencers. The recommendations they make and the comparative reports and whitepapers they write shape the thinking of journalists, potential customers and investors. Analyst houses and consultancies can be an indispensable source of information because they know your market and competitive landscape, but they can also be your most valuable ambassadors as they are a credible, independent source of expert opinion on your industry.

It is this feature that makes them the go-to source for so many other target audiences. As a result, Analyst Relations (AR) is essential to a well-rounded and successful Public Relations programme. Analysts should be engaged early on in a campaign as building relationships with these key influencers is vital. But it’s important to remember they are researchers and not reporters. They don’t need or want just a news release, a scoop or a sales pitch. They want strategy, direction and insight from the top of the business and time with your leadership team or the senior executives that can give them the information that will enable them to do their job.  

Traditional briefings either over the phone or face-to-face or analyst-only events are useful but it’s building up strong, personal relationships capable of delivering detail and fresh material that is the key to success. And by taking the time to invest in a focussed AR campaign and providing analysts with the right information and access points, you can ensure they assess your company accurately and position it correctly in its sector.

A good PR team should offer a strategic AR programme as part of an integrated campaign. Too many don’t and by failing to make connections with these important influencers, they run the risk of the not seeing the full benefits of even the most targeted media relations efforts.  It’s also important to start talking to analysts early on in a campaign as they can be a useful source of sector knowledge with a bird’s eye view of what’s going on. They can provide you with valuable insights into your industry, and will also know what your competitors are up to; both inputs which can help shape the roadmap the business follows as well as direct your communication efforts.

Prospective clients may see AR as adding to the cost of a campaign and an element that can be dispensed with to trim the fat from a retainer, but it is one of the cornerstones of a successful, comprehensive campaign and should not be ignored.

The problem with working in client/customer services is that you come to expect brilliant customer service from others - all of the time. I don’t mind it - in fact I find it pretty fascinating how client service varies so much (across everything as diverse as different industries, countries, regions and of course individual people themselves) but I do also understand that for others my fascination can seem obsessive, overly pedantic and well, boring! Nothing is more irritating that someone on their soap box about something you find unnecessary and irrelevant. No one will vouch for this more than my poor suffering husband who just this weekend had to put up with me complaining about a beetle in our hotel room bathroom and a piece of plastic in my chicken salad (in fairness I did think it was another beetle!).  
 
Where as I justify my complaints as fair enough - and on the surface my husband agrees, I think deep down he wishes I would sometimes just shut up! Brought up as a good Yorkshire boy who's mum's motto was always to "get on", I think sometimes he'd really rather I follow our forebears' example of being polite, British and just "making do"! At times I wish I would too.
 
To just be so relaxed and chilled out about these things would be a dream but sometimes, just sometimes it has its big bonus - and that's that if you are so obsessive about customer service you not only pick up on bad customer service but you also recognise great customer service. And it's this great customer service that should be held up, praised and promoted! So whilst I did yes complain about the beetles I did also praise the excellent customer service I experienced- one comment of which earned a v well deserved waiter, employee of the month (I very selfishly loved that bit!) I am not sure this quite absolves me of my Hyacinth Bucket alter ego which I tragically seem to be morphing into but it does help me to know that going out of your way to praise people for a job well done can go a long way.
 
Perhaps it wouldn't mean so much to people if it happened more, but I do really believe (another soap box moment on its way, I warn you!) that if people recognised and rewarded a good job well done that people would be motivated to do the same more frequently. I know for me that it works and I can only imagine it's the same for others too. Obviously married to this is the understanding and expectation that I will get pulled up for substandard work, but as long as I strive to be the best I can - and I inspire and reward the same in other people too, I stay confident that I am doing the best we can - and maybe breeding some of the same interest in good customer service while we do it!

 By Elena Davidson, Client Services Director at Mi liberty

Mi liberty intern, Myia Fray, talks about her time with Mi liberty and how it has helped her take the first steps to a future PR career.

If you had asked me a year ago what PR was, you would have been met with a blank face. If you had asked me how I felt about telecoms and technology, you may have been met with an even blanker one. A year on, a few BlackBerrys (mainly lost and damaged along the way), a Twitter account, and a few weeks of interning at a top London technology PR agency, and I am a changed woman.

When I arrived on my first day at the Mi liberty office I was unbelievably nervous. By the end of my first day I realised I had little to be nervous about. As a welcome, the team gathered at the pub for a drink at lunch. After work, I was invited to drinks arranged with some journalists and on the Friday we gathered together for the company’s ‘Live@Five’ session where the whole team got together to discuss the week’s highlights. In just one week my perception of the workplace had changed. What of the long, tiresome days? It would turn out that this was a place where the staff seemed to have a lot of fun and also demonstrate considerable prowess and pride in their work and achievements.

Throughout my time with the company, I felt supported by the team and each day I was presented with an activity different from the last. Some tasks were more exciting than others, but all proved to be a learning experience I wouldn’t have been able to access any other way. The team were also sensitive to the fact that I was new to PR and the telecoms industry and made me feel comfortable in asking for help and advice. I was invited along to talks and their weekly ‘lunch and learn’ sessions. From these I picked up a lot of additional information and made sure to take notes along the way. I was fortunate enough to play a role in constructing press releases, joining briefings with clients, researching media, press and other information for clients and the company. I was even included in brainstorming sessions, from which I learnt how strategy was formulated and how a project worked from conception. My input was welcomed and it gave me an opportunity to be creative as well as attentive.

Being asked to come in as an intern was a blessing. It presented me with an invaluable opportunity to gain insight into PR and how a successful agency operates. It has provided me with an excellent starting point and it has afforded me the confidence to progress with a career in marketing and PR. I am no longer daunted by the idea of being inexperienced and moreover, I managed to meet and work alongside many great and talented people. I was sad to leave, but hope to maintain the relationships I built whilst continuing to build upon the foundations for a career set by Mi liberty.

Recently we made a further commitment to Mi liberty's ethos around client satisfaction and appointed a dedicated client services director to our management team. This role is an extension of everything the agency has been built on from day one. Mi liberty celebrated its 13th birthday this week and my experiences over the past years has just served to strengthen my view that happy clients are intrinsically linked to a solid business ethic and a fundamental for growth and reputation.

Still, it never ceases to amaze when new clients come to Mi liberty having already been "burned" by poor service or bad PR from the agency world. It's like the PR industry never learns that to be perceived as a valued partner, it has to deliver on its promises. Of course, it's the same in every walk of life, so why would PR agencies feel that they can get away with shoddy support and poor advice?

I'm proud that we can boast some very long term clients and that has to be a testament to our way of working. Prior to founding the agency, I worked on the client side at some major global brands in the technology world. My in-house communication roles enabled me to experience, first hand, some of the worst, and thankfully, some of the best of agency support. Unfortunately, throughout a 15 year career I never found the agency with the right mix. The upshot was that I was determined to build an agency that was better in every way. Let's face it, any agency is only going to be as good as its fundamental founding principles and the calibre of professionals who deliver that ethos.

At the end of the day, Mi liberty is a reflecton of my standards as a person. So why wouldn't I want it to be the best at client satisfaction? One part of me hopes that agencies that don't stack up read this and buck their ideas up, but the other half thinks that whilst they continue to take their clients for granted and under-perform, there will always be an agency that does it right.

What do you think about PR agency support in the technology industry? You can email me, or follow me on twitter where I intend to become quite vocal on the matter.

 

Just got these fresh from the media preview organised by Toshiba (with a fair bit of help from our own Qualcomm PR team). The verdict on the device? It's actually nicer to hold and play with than the iPhone - honest! However, the handsets were not running the final OS, so hard to tell if Windows Mobile is really going to do the gorgeous design justice.

The official launch is at MWC.

 

Amazing data out from ComScore shows that the iPhone accounted for more than 14% of all game downloads in the US in November. That's from a handset that has an installed base of less than 1% in the US.

Even more significant is that over 30% of iPhone users said they downloaded a game - that's against a US consumer average for all subscribers of below 4%, which in itself has been stagnant at that level for the past 2-3 years.

I've spoken to a few contacts in the mobile games industry, and the iPhone seems like a ray of light at the end of a very bleak tunnel. No porting, no fragmentation, no operator egos or hoops to jump through. But also, very fickle and already very very crowded with free or very low cost games. As with anything to do with mobiles, high volumes are only good if people are paying decent money. Pocketgamer.biz has run some stories about supposed $20 price points for games on the app store, and also some scary stats about games piracy on the iPhone. So it's far from all good news. But it's going to be interesting to see how the big 3 of EA, Glu and Gameloft react to this, having poured millions into Java games on wafer-thing margins.

Following on from Filltr, I wanted to show you the wonderful world of Ning.Ning is a name that has been banded about for a while, gaining quite a bit of interest in the US business press. But what exactly is Ning? Just like its blogging predecessors, Ning allows user’s to create, design and manage their very own social community on anything they like. And by paying a small fee you can use your own URL or even manage the advertising.

The benefits of Ning?
Creating your own social network allows you to communicate on a direct level to your target audience.
It brings like minded people together to discuss the topics that really interest them.
It allows you to control the user generated content and get them talking about the things you want them to
Ning can also be used as a testing ground for micro-sites or networking sites you may want to create before making large investments.

It could prove to be a very useful tool to have access to.

Filttr, like Ronseal, does exactly what it says on the tin - filters your tweets and only shows you what you’re interested in.  

Seems like a lot of people are trying to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, but worth checking it out and could be a solution to twitter spam. https://filttr.com/