Heather Davies

This week I have spent an unusual amount of time learning about the world of Public Relations – firstly at the Young Women in Media event about PR on Monday, and secondly helping a PR company record a podcast about measurement.

What have I learnt?  Well, radio and PR have a lot in common, and a lot to learn from each other:

• Both are “communication-centric” which means that they are at their most effective when they tap into real experiences, bringing people together and helping them connect with a presenter, a playlist or a brand – find the human angle, the personal reason to engage and you’ve nailed it
• The issues around unpaid internships are a reality for both – with tight budgets and crowds of jobless eager interns, taking someone on unpaid is very tempting, but ultimately wrong – it perpetuates the problem and creates an unfair divide between those trying to get in: those who can afford to live rent-free, and those that can’t
• No qualification is ever going to trump actually getting your hands dirty with a project.  It was really refreshing to hear our speakers on Monday talk about how they really admired individuals who took on projects in their spare time – such as helping a family business or local charity get more coverage – something we hear over and again in radio, but sometimes forget the value of
• Measurement is a tricky business.  Assessing the value of your PR campaign or the precise number of listeners to your station is hard.  The current methods are flawed, but the more accurate alternatives can seem scary when you face huge drop-offs in figures – but in a time where everyone can freely see your twitter followers, your number of “likes” on Facebook, and the views your viral gets on YouTube – for all media it’s time to get with the programme and modernise
• In a rapidly changing media landscape, dialogue within your own industry is crucial.  Both industries are beginning to understand the value of working together, with the Barcelona summit on the Measurement of Communication last summer, and the launch of the UK RadioPlayer last week
• Know your playground.  You can’t succeed in either industry without knowing what game you’re in.  To get a journalist to publish your story, you have to understand how that fits with their editorial priorities and you have to be familiar with their agenda (and you absolutely HAVE to read their columns!); similarly, there’s no point pitching a Radio 4 idea to Radio 2 – but also never under-value the value of being able to talk about that great thing that you heard / saw / read on their network or site



• A five-minute face-to-face meeting is worth ten emails. A night out when you don’t talk about work at all is worth a hundred
• Nice people get on.  Nice people also bring cookies.