Please check out another blog I've been helping to develop - Earlin' Abuse: Steve Earl's IT PR Agency Blog.

I've been developing this blog for Susannah Wyeth at Lighthouse PR. Please check it out!

Seven days after moving to the capital, here I am sat in a dark corner of a small Internet café, sipping a latte, updating my blog and trying out the frustrated writer look. The odd socks and un-ironed t-shirt probably weren’t necessary but I think they add a certain something.

My first week at Rainier PR has been great. I’ve attended lots of meetings and training sessions, and even had a chance to do a bit of proper PR – phoning journalists. Prior to this week I’d never sold a story in to a journalist and truthfully I’d been dreading it a little. However I found it was actually okay and by the time I’d reached the end of my list I was quite enjoying it.

On the first day I was introduced to the staff and given a laptop and smart phone. One of my clients sells mobile advertising so I’ve been trying out the mobile internet since then. I think it’s important I practice what I preach. Also I haven’t had broadband installed yet and a life without facebook isn’t worth living. Some of my other clients include Ntl:Telewest, Dante and Seniqua. As well as this I’ll also be working with one of Rainier’s sister companies, Lighthouse PR, developing their new blog.

I received my exam results and degree classification on the second day. I got a 2:1! I’m very pleased with that and thrilled that I got a 1^st on my dissertation, which asked is blogging the future of PR, as well as a 1^st for the Opus project. I think I averaged about 67% but every time I try to work it out I get a different figure so it’s lucky I didn’t study mathematics.

Thursday was the 5^th birthday of this blog. I started it at 16 as a sort of online diary documenting nights out and silly stuff from school for my friends to read, without the ability to comment. The blog was part of my website, which hosted photos, videos and displayed some information about myself. If only I had known a bit more about web design and thought to make my website into an interactive network I could have had the next Facebook or YouTube on my hands. Alas I was more interested in writing Biggish Sibling, my series of blog posts about a fruit bowl where the fruit got evicted and a mango died from using hoof paste instead of tooth paste. What was I thinking? It seems mad to think I’ve passed my GSCE’s, A-Levels, and driving test, and even gotten a degree since then. Here’s to the next five years!

Friday kicked off with a celebratory champagne breakfast and movie premiere to celebrate some of the team completing the three peaks challenge last weekend. Rather them than me. See the video here.

This weekend I had a look around a few of the sights; Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, China Town and the Topman store on Oxford Street. I remember a few of the places from a school trip to London when I was in primary school. Having never really holidayed in London since then it’s very strange living there now as it half feels like I’m on holiday or doing work experience and going home soon.

It's easy for Liverpudlians to get excited about the £1bn new shopping centre that is bringing 42 acres of shops and 5,000 jobs to the city, but what about the rest of the country? At the risk of sounding like Bob Geldof: Do they know it's shopping time at all?

Intrigued by this, I posed a question on Twitter asking if any non-scousers had heard of Liverpool One to see if it had gained national coverage. I didn't get much of a response although amusingly @jedhallam thought I'd been doing some freelance PR for the shopping centre. I haven't!

I'm really impressed by the Liverpool One website. It's not particularly innovative or exciting, but it works very well. It's packed full of information about the shopping centre, and news and photos about the building work. There's even a few webcams and a competition to find the most stylish worker in the city, which they've named the Liverpool One.

Displaying Press Releases as part of the website isn't unusual. However I think displaying the Media Coverage gained is, as I've never seen it before. The list of coverage hasn't been updated since mid-March but it still gives quite an interesting look into what coverage has been gained. Mostly it's been in local newspapers such as the Liverpool Echo and the Liverpool Daily Post, and trade magazines such as Retail Week and Property Week.

Some national coverage has been gained though.

There's been an interesting interview in the Independent with Joanne Jennings talking about her life as a Regeneration Expert. This is a clever angle for getting coverage and allows Joanne to wax lyrical about the shopping centre.

Another interesting angle that got some coverage in the Financial Times was to defend the building of a shopping centre when there is currently so much talk of a recession.

They also got coverage in the Daily Express' Property section by showing how the shopping centre was bringing new flats and housing to the city.

This is all the national coverage gained up until mid-March. I'm sure there has been a lot more since then as the grand opening will have generated a lot of media coverage. A clever move was to invite the Queen, and broadcast and print journalists, to visit the shopping centre a week or so before it opened to the public. This guaranteed that video footage and images of Liverpool One would make it into the news. Plus I got to see her and Prince Phillip arrive at the train station!


Whether or not all of this has actually put Liverpool on the map I'm not sure. However I like that they've split the development into two phases, therefore creating two occasions for grand openings and anniversaries in the future.

It will be interesting to see if they are able to gain as much attention when the second phase of the shopping centre opens in 117 days on the 30th September - my birthday! Repeating the same competitions and inviting the Queen back again probably wouldn't work. Perhaps they could invite a few WAGs from Liverpool and Everton football clubs as well as journalists to do some shopping before it officially opens. Or get a few up-and-coming Liverpudlian bands to give a performance on the opening day, such as the Zutons and the Wombats, as well as wheeling Sir Paul McCartney out again.

There have been many negative news reports predicting a recession recently. There's a reason for this: bad news is good news. The same applies to social media. People are more willing to pass on and take in bad news than good news. For example a tweet that says, "My car got me to work without any problems again today." is a lot less interesting than "My car broke down on the motorway today. I'll never buy a Ford again!"

This is why monitoring what people are saying about your brand or product is so imperative. This is particularly important in an age of social media where that negative message could quickly go global. Fortunately by reacting to negative messages and using blogger outreach you can use bad news like the recession to your advantage.

Reactions to negative messages:

• If a blogger has been made redundant offer them a free trial of your recruitment service.
• If a Facebook group has been started to complain that your product is now more expensive, apologise and explain why the price change has been made. Maybe even offer a one-off discount to members of the group.
• If someone isn't happy with their mobile phone. Offer them a free trial of your company's phone. Chances are they will want to keep the phone at the end of the trial so offer them the option to buy it.
• If a blogger can't find any holidays in their price range, suggest some cheap options.
• If someone tweets to say their taxi is late, offer your services instead. (See feverbee)

Managed correctly bad news can really be good news for your company.

UPDATE: Stephen Davies of Prblogger.com gives a good example of the Carphone Warehouse reacting to a negative blog post here.

We got the prints back from the family photo shoot that I organised with Alex Petricca of AP Photo for my mum's 50th birthday last month.

Three weeks ago I started using Twitter to link to my blog posts and news stories that I found of interest. I didn't really see the point of it, but I thought I'd give it ago afterall it only took up a few minutes of my time.

Gradually I immersed myself into the 'Twittersphere' and started following other PR people and entering into conversations. I thought it was interesting but I certainly had no idea that it would further my career.

After just ten days of twittering I was contacted by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR and invited to attend an interview the following week. A few days later I had a second interview over the phone and now today I have been offered a job with the company. I start next month and cannot wait. It's been my dream for quite some time to work in technology public relations, so to work for one of the top 10 tech PR companies in the UK is unbelievable! Plus I got a mention on their blog to boot.

Directly through twittering I have also acquired twenty-one followers or contacts. This means that I have gained a new contact for every day I have spent microblogging. Indirectly I look set to gain many, many more contacts in the form of my new work colleagues.

Not bad for a website I didn't see the point of.