Site FAQ

PRexamples.com is a new blog for PR and social media professionals. Rather than write paragraphs of dull block text, here’s a Q&A you may like to read…

Q. What is PRexamples.com?

A. PR Examples, or PRexamples.com, is a blog dedicated to celebrating the best in PR/social media marketing. My aim is for the site to become the place people in the industry come to procrastinate and/or draw inspiration from highlighted campaigns and stunts.

Q. I notice .co.uk redirects here – is this a UK website?

A. I’m based in the UK. The aim is to highlight campaigns/stunts from all over the world, though.

Q. What do you mean by PR/social media stunts and campaigns?

A. Do you remember the Baby Gaga Ice Cream PR stunt, for the Icecreamists by Taylor Herring? Or when Scrabble was played by skydivers to celebrate the game’s 60th birthday? How about when Mischief PR handled this Horse Shoe stunt for Betfair, during Cheltenham Race Week? All great PR stunts. And the ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign? One of my favourite marketing campaigns ever.

In terms of great social media efforts, you may remember Tippex’s Youtube bear advert - itself seemingly inspired by Burger King’s Subservient Chicken, the Tweet Pie Twitter-sourced recipe book campaign or Old Spice’s ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like‘.

Obviously, these are all stand-out memorable efforts, but good work goes on every single day, carried out by agencies and in-house teams all over the world. It’s my aim to bring as many of these efforts to light as possible.

Q. Who are you, then?

A. My name is Rich Leigh. I’m a UK-based PR professional, working for 10 Yetis PR Agency. I write a weekly column for industry opinion website PRmoment.com (archive here), tweet more than I probably should here – @goodandbadpr – and came up with light-hearted PR/journalist award scheme The CRAPPs (Communicative Relations Awards from PR Professionals).                                                     

Q. Why PRexamples.com?

A. Google, really, if I’m honest. Their keyword tool tells me there are approximately 30,000+ monthly searches for the term “PR example/s”, 31,000+ for “PR campaign/s” and 8,000 for “PR stunt/s”. And knowing a keyword-rich domain name is key SEO-wise, I went for the only one available.

Q. Will I be able to contribute to the blog, at all?

A. Well, as a matter of fact, that’s kind of the point. I want this blog to become a multi-contributor site and am actively inviting all interested in getting involved to contact me. If you are passionate about public relations and/or social media stunts and campaigns, you’ll probably want to read on to see the answers to questions you may have.

Q. OK. What do I get out of it?

A. Good question (I guess it should be, I just wrote it). You get what any blogger gets out of blogging. You get to write about a subject you’re passionate about or enjoy, but hopefully as well as that, the nature of the site as a multi-contributor blog will get your words out to a greater audience. Also, I’ll pay you 50p per word*.

Oh, and we won’t stop you linking to your agency/company website/Twitter profile in your blog if you wanted to, bringing with it the obvious SEO/potential traffic benefits. Unless it’s every other word, then we may have to have words.

*I won’t pay you 50p per word.

Q. I’m an agency owner – why should I care?

A. If you or one of your employees is contributing a current (or recent) campaign you did for a client, you never know when a potential client may stumble upon the example and get in touch because of it. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend that budget (or any sensitive/confidential information for that matter) is disclosed. There is also, especially as this site becomes better ranked itself, the obvious SEO benefits that come with linking to yourself and your clients from it. I’m not suggesting a link from this is tantamount to getting one from the Mail or anything like that, but it won’t hurt, either.

Q. How often would I be expected to contribute?

A. As much or as little as you want. If you spot a stunt or campaign you want to write about every day, feel free. Conversely, if you only write one blog and then forget about the site, I won’t be chasing you down. My aim is to allow authors to be as committed as they want to (and can) be. There are brilliant efforts every day – enough to keep one person busy full-time. Having many different authors will hopefully ensure we don’t miss campaigns/stunts, but also shouldn’t tax contributors too much, either.

Q. Will you edit my blogs?

A. Not beyond glaring spelling erors or grammatical issues, no. Rule of thumb: don’t say things that will make agencies or their clients sue either of us. If you do, I’ll delete your entry faster than you can say libel.

Q. Do you have any blog guidelines?

A. Why, what a conveniently worded question. Yes, yes we do. The guidelines are as follows. Each blog would ideally include:

• A description of the campaign/stunt
• A supportive photo/video
• The name of the agency/team behind it (if known)
• The name of the client (if known/applicable)
• And a link to the source (opening in a new tab/window, if you please – no leaked traffic on my watch)

That’s it.

Q. What if somebody else writes about a campaign I wanted to write about?

A. Always check before you blog. We’ll delete blogs if they feature something already posted on the site, simply because there’s no need to have them up there. This sounds harsh, but imagine you’re a reader – do you want to read three blogs about the same campaign, or three separate campaigns?

Q. Did any other current sites inspire this idea?

A. I’m a long-time fan of Adverblog, and hope for PRexamples.com to become the PR/social media world’s answer to it. Adverblog’s mantra – ‘post the best, forget the rest’ is certainly something I’d like to emulate. I don’t want this site to dwell on the mundane, but rather focus on the impressive. I also like The Wall (Brand Republic’s social media/marketing blog) for the way it allows bloggers to dip in and out of contributing without feeling as if they have to maintain regular entries.

I also used to maintain a personal blog dedicated to PR and social media stunts and campaigns here. This is a natural progression from that.

Q. I’m in. How do I become an author, then?

A. Email me at rich@prexamples.com and I’ll set you up with a username/login. From there, feel free to run things past me as and when you want to, but there’re absolutely no expectations.

Q. Are you on Twitter?

A. Yes, find us tweeting @PRexamples. Follow us, tell your friends, yada yada.

Any other questions? Contact me at rich@prexamples.com