I have finally found some time to write this blog post! I’ve been planning it since my dissertation results came out end of July; at first I wanted to just present the survey findings in a text form with lots of explanations, but then I thought, no, an infographic would be perfect. And here it is - my first infographic! It shows in a nice visual way what I found from the survey I conducted with PR professionals earlier this year.

In addition to the online questionnaire I also carried out interviews with PR pros from the UK, some of which I will post soon. So, stay tuned! (update: here's the first interview with Heather Yaxley.)

As for the dissertation, now it’s time to brag a little bit :P I was very happy about my result and the positive feedback I got – my mark was 75%, or a First as it’s called in the UK (for the ones unfamiliar with the UK grading system, here’s a simple grade chart). I consider this an achievement, first because I don’t have much practical experience in Public Relations (or more precisely, didn’t have at the time), and second because I am not native in the language I wrote the dissertation in – English, which is just another foreign language for me.

As happy as I am, I still have a second dissertation to write and one more term back in Germany to finally finish my entire BA degree in International Business. Yes, I know how complicated it sounds…

So, getting to the point, below you’ll find the results of the online survey I conducted for the dissertation, which was entirely targeted at PR/Communications professionals (I have not included the participants’ profiling; however if you wish to have a look, just get in touch with me). Once again I would like to thank all survey (and interview) participants. I admit gathering enough questionnaire responses was one of the major difficulties of the project.

Again, the infographic below only shows a summary of the findings, the actual results are much more detailed and in-depth as all survey questions not only had pre-determined answer options, but also open-ended questions asking for explanations, more details and opinions. Nevertheless, the following should still give you some food for thought.

I’m becoming more and more interested in sustainability, so when I saw this campaign I was thrilled and frankly quite happy that big corporations are taking a step away from being massive profit machines to more human and caring organisations not only when it comes to production, but also when they make marketing decisions.

To promote the eco-conscious nature of its BlueMotion vehicles, which are powered by innovative, energy-saving technologies specially designed to reduce both fuel consumption and harmful emissions, Volkswagen and Ogilvy Cape Town created a very smart print ad campaign to reinforce recycling in South Africa. The idea behind it was to develop print inserts that help save paper, not waste it.

“The BlueMotion Label” advert allowed people to easily recycle their magazines once they’ve finished reading them by sticking the inserts onto the front cover and dropping the magazines into a post box to be sent to a recycling plant.

Volkswagen and Ogilvy Cape Town saw an opportunity in the lack of recycling options in South Africa. People there have easy access to post boxes, however not every neighbourhood has formal recycling bins – 77% of magazines in the country are thrown away. The campaign effectively turned post boxes into community recycling bins.  

I have discussed Facebook with many of my friends and work colleagues and quite of few of them have told me “Oh, I hate Facebook!” (to be clear, I don’t!) However, they still use the platform for various reasons, including because all of their friends and family are on it (and not on Google+), or for business and marketing purposes. So, for all of you who don’t like Facebook and/or want to stay in touch with family and family only, here’s JustFamily – a new social network just for family.

You probably ask yourself “Why should I join yet another social media site?” Here’s why according to the founders of JustFamily:

"There are lots of ways to share “what’s happening now” with friends and the world. But family is different. Family is the only social group that cares about the past, the present, and the future. We’re building JustFamily so families can share life together and stay close in a private place, away from work and friends.”

Well, that sounds reasonable to me. Therefore, I decided to join the network and now I want to show you what it looks like and some of its features. The site is very clean and easy to navigate – I assume because it’s supposed to be used by the elderly people of the family as well.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is still a new concept for me and I admit I am a beginner. This is why when I came across the infographic below, I decided to share it because I am certain there are many people out there with limited (or zero) knowledge of SEO who might find the following information useful.

But first, what is SEO?

According to Wikipedia it is:

“...the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural," or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic"), search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. ”

“As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience.”

(Yes, it does sound confusing and complicated...)

What are the benefits of SEO?

A well implemented SEO strategy could help your website rank higher in search engine results (for example in Google) and so would make your business/services/products more visible and easier to find in the online space. This in turn could improve brand awareness, generate traffic, increase sales, improve reputation etc. by boosting the number of people who know about you.

The infographic below breaks down the key components of Search Engine Optimisation helping you gain a better understanding of the concept and giving you some ideas how to implement it.  

Back to the subject of good writing, here’s the second part of my favourite quotes from each chapter of Zinsser's “On Writing Well” (check out part 1 here). One of the best advice the author gave encouraged me to keep on writing and helped me realise that I am making progress of becoming better at it: “... writing isn’t a skill that some people are born with and others aren’t, like a gift for art or music. Writing is talking to someone else on paper. Anybody who can think clearly can write clearly, about any subject at all.”

Chapter 13: Writing about Places: The Travel Article

“This is the essence of good writing about other countries. Distill the important from the immaterial... Beware of waxing. If you’re writing about places that are sacred or meaningful, leave the waxing to someone else.”