PR agencies (and agencies in general) are notoriously known for not having the time to invest in their own PR or marketing activities but make their living out of advising and implementing such for clients.

If you are an agency owner or work in an agency, let me ask you some questions:

1. Do you blog?
2. Do you use social media?
3. Do you have a landing page on your site?
4. How much time do you invest in doing PR for your own agency?

Now, let me take a guess about your answers:

1. Hmm when we have time.
2. Yes, but mainly just to curate or share our own stuff.
3. No, no time for that and what’s the point.
4. We just don’t have time because we are swamped with client work.

You might be thinking, “Why do I even need any of that? We have our clients, our team is busy, we can’t invest time and money into something that won’t bring us much result.”

Yep, sure. For now you do. Do you think about the future, though?

Far too often I hear “We just didn’t have time to blog this month, there’s just so much going on with our clients.” 

This is the number 1 challenge for agencies –> we don’t have time for our own PR and marketing.

But that’s just wrong.

Over the past eight months, I’ve had many PR students contact me to ask for help or advice with their PR dissertation.

The majority of them seem to struggle to find a good topic for their dissertations, but quite a few also find it difficult to identify good resources to start with their research.

That’s why I thought it would be useful to share with you a list of books, blogs and resource banks I recommend for your research, topic brainstorm, literature review and, in general, to help you grow your knowledge in the field.

Some of these I’ve used for my own research – first on social media for PR, then on social media for sustainability. I've had some comments that some of these books might be a little outdated since the industry moves so fast, but I have purposefully included them because current graduates probably don't know how the industry used to be a few years back and it is essential that while doing their research they understand how exactly things have changed since then. 

I hope you find the list useful!

33 Resources for Your PR Dissertation:

You see me write about sustainability lately a lot. So by now, you should know that we need to do something, companies need to step up and take action, we as individuals need to do so too.

But there’s so much to do! So many issues to fix… The majority of organisations cannot tackle each and every one of them on their own. What we and they need is focus – start with one initiative, complete it successfully, tackle that one issue to make an impact and then move onto the next one.

You can’t run into every possible direction as you won’t go anywhere – it’s that simple. So today we are going to talk about one issue that needs to be solved – the growing global water footprint.

When it comes to water consumption, everyone has a responsibility to conserve more and use less. The average American lifestyle requires about 2,000 gallons per day – twice the global average – and shows no signs of stopping. CustomMade has created a really cool infographic, outlining our water usage (domestic, industrial and agricultural) and simple ways we can lessen our water consumption.

A few weeks ago, Stephen Waddington asked his community for their favourite 50 PR media – 10 blogs, 10 books, 10 communities, 10 newsletters and 10 podcasts – to crowdsource a summer list blog post (awesome idea, right?).

Of course, I jumped in too and mentioned Trust Me, PR is Dead as my favourite PR book this summer. (My blog actually ended up making his list!)

The one thing that stuck in my mind the most while reading the book was the super strong link that Robert Phillips makes between PR and sustainability. Honestly, I haven’t seen a PR professional advocating conscious business so passionately before. This makes the book more a business book, rather than a PR read.

I myself had researched social media for sustainability, but never really focused that much on the PR practice for sustainability, although it makes perfect sense. It comes natural to me – first because of my passion for sustainability, and second because I am a digital native and I understand or better yet live by the seismic changes that are happening in our society and the economy as a result. But I guess that’s not the case for many others.

The March of Conscious Business

PR as we once knew it might be dead, but conscious business is not. Or shouldn’t be. And it should guide the PR practice of the future.

In June 1992, over 30,000 people and more than 100 heads of states gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the largest environmental conference that became known as the Earth Summit.

The goal was to respond to the pressing global environmental challenges and to agree on a plan for tackling issues such as biodiversity, climate change, pollution and unsustainable production, extinction of resources, forest management, population growth, consumption rates and poverty.

The result: a declaration of 27 principles for nations to commit to becoming more sustainable. These are still adhered to today and influence political and business decisions.

But how far have we come?

Call me a pessimist, but not as far as we could have.

Sustainability Agenda not on the Corporate Radar

A recent survey by GlobeScan/SustainAbility has tracked and analysed the evolution of the sustainability agenda and what progress the leaders and institutions most responsible for driving it forward have made since the Earth Summit.

The one thing that stuck in my mind after reviewing the infographic with the results (see below) is that corporates and businesses have not advanced enough.