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.

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.

Fake weblogs or flogs have finally been told to flog off.

No longer just unethical PR practise, flogs will soon be illegal in the UK. Thanks to the 'Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008' it will be against the law for companies to mislead the public with fake blogs from the 28th May. It's a great move and one which I hope will see the PR industry continue to move away from it's image of lies and spin. After all deceiving your customers can't be a fantastic way to encourage brand loyalty and trust. Or a great way to use a PR budget.

Stephen Davies of prblogger.com recently posed the question 'Where are all the student PR bloggers?' Now he's created a list, and for some reason or another I top it. See the list of UK PR student bloggers here.

It's not the first time Davies has helped me. I quoted his Behind The Spin article, 'Blog-it-yourself and watch your profile rise' in my dissertation. I think this serves to prove that blogging can raise your profile. This is certainly true in Google. A search for 'Matthew Watson' shows my blog as the 4th result, just behind a Professor Matthew Watson from the University of Warwick.

I interviewed Thibault Masson for my dissertation today. Thibault is the founder of an excellent French company named Fashion-Fox. Fashion Fox is a consultancy specialising in online marketing for fashion company's around the world.

Thibault helped answer about a million of my questions and gave some brilliant answers as well as an insight into the French blogosphere. This should help hugely when I consider language barriers and cultural differences that affect blogging.

He said that not all businesses should blog especially if they are, "Blogging about something that no one care about like the CEO's new hair cut." This ties in great with an article I have by Janet Street-Porter from the Independent called 'Just Blog Off!' about the uninteresting Waitrose blog written by the MD about his weight loss.

So I urge you to check out Fashion Fox. It's a great resource run by a great person! Also if you are interested in fashion, Thibault runs two fashion blogs Chaussure-femmes.com and Lingerie-Meets-Underwear.com

As part of my group's PR campaign for the Opus Project we decided to create a website, mailing list and blog. Today I launched a basic version of the website to get things started.

For those of you that don't know, the Opus Project is an iniative by the University of Huddersfield to promote creative works and designs by current and former students.

Thanks to Easy Jet and having a good friend with an appartment in Nice, France, I shall be enjoying a six day break during Easter for just £113.05. A bargain by anyone's standards I think.

Should be a great reward for finishing and handing in my dissertation on blogs. I just need to write it first!

Ooh la la.