Don't Believe in Inbound PR? This Post Will Change Your Mind was the first post I ever wrote about Inbound PR. That was in July 2015.

I kept on writing and started doing public speaking on the topic around the world. 

Then came the INBOUND16 conference in November 2016 where my pitch for Inbound PR was accepted and I spoke in front of hundreds of people about it. The immediate questions after my talk were: "Is there a book or a HubSpot Academy Certification where we can keep learning about this?" 

I said "Well, no, there isn't. Yet."

Fast forward to March 2017, I had just finished writing the first draft of my 40,000 words manuscript  for my Inbound PR book. 

I've always dreamed about working with Wiley as a publisher because they've published the books of some of my favourite PR and business authors such as Brian Solis, David Meerman Scott and Stephen Waddington so I took a chance and emailed them my pitch. 

And I got a YES. Can you believe it? I couldn't initially. 

Now fast forward to April 2018, the Inbound PR book published by Wiley is a reality. 

And it drops today! 

CIPR's State of the Profession is out. It's the UK PR industry's longest-running and most authoritative research study into public relations practice that delivers industry-leading data on the trends, issues and challenges impacting PR. I cover the research every year. 

In 2018, the study found that the biggest challenge for the PR industry is under-representation of PR professionals at board level - this was the same in the 2017 research. To give you some of the numbers, only 1 in 10 senior respondents indicated they were a member of an executive board.

When trying to figure out why, the study found that PR pros are overwhelmingly engaged in tactical delivery, for example, 76% spend some or most time copywriting and editing.

A longer-term challenge for the PR industry seems to be finding new ways and sources to provide value, specifically when it comes to having to counter the risk of AI and new technologies. 

This too relates back to how the most commonly undertaken activity in PR is copywriting and editing, the second most common is delivering PR campaigns and the third most common is media relations. Elements of these activities, as well as social media relations, are at risk of automation. 

What this all tells us is that if PR people want a seat at the table, they need to break away from tactical communications and assert wider influence over the organisation they work in. 

Most importantly, PR people need to build their business acumen to break through beyond PR. This is something I've realised a while ago and was one of the key reasons I developed the concept and thinking around Inbound PR. 

Given that I come from a PR background, my friends at Prowly asked me a few weeks ago for my top tips on how to build good relationships with journalists.

Edyta from Prowly had reached out to a number of great PR people to get their thoughts on the topic and compile them all into a very helpful post. 

I've so far had a terrible experience with PR pros pitching me as an influencer (check out some examples here - I promise, you'll have a good laugh), so I was delighted to share what I thought on the topic. 

Below, I'm republishing my part of the interview on how to do better media relations.  

#1 Media relations: the media are evolving at an incredibly high speed, but certain standards for collaborating with them remain unchanged. What are they, in your opinion?

Last week, we covered the key principles for strategic internal communication. 

I promised that I will be discussing how to create an internal communication strategy this week so here so let's do this! 

An internal communication strategy sets out support and enables the delivery of the organisation's overall strategy. It converts the organisation's strategic intent into communications that support it and maximises the impact of an organisation's communications efforts.

In essence, the internal communication strategy

• aligns with the organisational strategy
• develops a set of communications plans and principles
• identifies key performance indicators and feedback mechanisms

Your international communication strategy must be unique to your organisation, its current situation, its unique strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 

Which is why it's always important to start with an analysis of your surroundings before you begin crafting your international communication strategy. 

Poor or ineffective communication is one of the key barriers to change in organisations. 

At one stage or another, every company experiences this. 

In my role as Global Partner Program Manager at HubSpot, I've recently taken on a new challenge - to run the internal communication for our Partner Program. 

I come from a PR background so communications is nothing new, however, during that time I dealt with external stakeholders not internal. 

So to step up my game for my new work focus, I've been reading quite a few books on the topic of internal communication (IC) and I also spent a full day in training on Strategic Communications: Making Strategy Happen with the Institute of Internal Communication in London last week. 

As always, I want to share my learnings from the course with you - today, we'll cover key principles and the link between strategy and communications; next week, we'll talk about how to create a strategic international communication strategy.