Exciting News

January 2010 sees the launch of Eat Love Sleep PR, my new PR company specialising in the hospitality industry.

I've been out of the traditional PR business for a while, and while I've loved helping SMEs and entrepreneurs learn how to do their own PR, now that my eldest two children are in secondary school, it's time to get back to doing it myself.

The business plan has been written, I've got staff in place and ready to work with me, and a website up and running. Of course, it needs work, but it's coming together. And it's exciting!!!

PR and SEO

Now and again I work with a client that's in the middle of a huge Search Engine Optimisation overhaul and, to be frank, it's always a bit tricky. I remember when I worked with an SEO expert on the www.doyourownpr.com site. He was convinced that the way forward for me was to use "PR company North east" in my text as much as possible because not only was that a highly used keyword, it also had little competition.

The fact that it wasn't likely to bring in my target clients didn't register with him. Neither did the fact that it wouldn't actually make sense to use it. No, what was on his mind was getting my site higher on searches. Not what my prospective clients - or press - needed to see.

Okay, I'm not trying to diss SEO here. What I'm saying is that you need to use common sense and consider if the text you are using is attractive and compelling enough to keep possible clients and press reading.

Thinking of Starting Your Own PR Company?

A couple of years ago I launched the Start a PR Company Programme. Since then I have worked with a number of very interesting PR people, all intent on creating and moulding a company that suits them.

Now, after eight years of showing people how to do their own PR, I have plans to launch my own PR company, and am more than interested in going back to these people - and interviewing new ones - and finding out what particularly worked for them.

You can see the results in my new blog Your PR Company where you can read the stories of their success!

Journalists on Twitter

www.prblogger.com has put up a great list of journalists on Twitter here

There's also another site here that could be of use.

The big question is, how should you use it?

I never pitch to journalists on Twitter, instead I

* Contact them in response to a Tweet they've put up - but only if I have something relevant.

* Read their Tweets to guage what they are working, what they would be like to approach offline and what news is catching their attention at the moment.

* Look at who they are following - who do they think is influential?

* Sometime re-tweet a media request that they might have put out.

You can follow me on twitter @doyourownpr