Public relations has had issues with measuring return on investment for, arguably, the entirety of its life. Competitive disciplines such as digital marketing, advertising and SEO have mopped up business for little other reason than PR has struggled to prove its worth. A new methodology, however, promises to guide PR professionals towards a process that demonstrates its value once and for all.

In this episode of the Digital Download podcast I talk to Iliyana Stareva, Global Partner Program Manager at HubSpot, whose book ‘Inbound PR’ presents a methodology for public relations that moves the conversation firmly away from being one about reputation management to being one about the bottom line. Inbound PR looks to firmly establish PR as a management discipline, something that CIPR President Sarah Hall pushed heavily on S1 E2 of this very podcast.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

The CIPR’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) panel has published new research revealing the impact of AI on public relations and communications practice. It highlights where AI is already impacting skills, predicts the impact on the profession in the next five years and makes interesting and, depending on your perspective, challenging reading for anyone working in communications.

In this episode of the Digital Download podcast, I talk to past President of the CIPR Stephen Waddington, who is leading the #AIinPR panel, to unpack the new report. We look at the impact that technology is already having on PR and communications, discuss how this will increasingly affect skills and job roles over the next three to five years, and we talk about what communications practitioners need to do in order to protect themselves and take advantage of new opportunities.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

Podcasting has undergone a massive resurgence in popularity over the last couple of years, and the boom shows no signs whatsoever of slowing down. In fact, with Google entering the fray listening could as much as double in the next two to three years. Communications professionals, however, seem to be reluctant to embrace podcasts as a medium perhaps due to unfamiliarity with the technology and processes.

In this episode of the Digital Download podcast, I talk to MD of Brighter Comms and self-confessed podcast geek Sara Robinson in a bid to demystify the content form of the moment. We chat about why the opportunity for PR is ripe and how, if they act quickly, brands can leverage podcasting to maximise their messaging.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

Personal branding is a term that few people like, but that many people understand the huge value of. We all have a personal brand, whether or not we like it or whether we understand what it is.

In the first episode in Season Two of the Digital Download podcast, I talk to blogger, podcaster, speaker and author Mark Schaefer about his new book ‘Known’ and ask the question: is it really possible for anyone to become known? And if so, how?

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

In early March I wrote a blog post entitled ‘The Four Horsemen of the PR-pocalypse’. It outlined four key threats to the public relations industry, each of which represents a threat but in combination could quite possibly wipe out large swathes of agencies, freelancers and in-house communications practitioners. It created quite a stir within the industry.

This is the final show in Season One of the Digital Download podcast, and to round off the Season, founder of virtual PR agency Aby Hawker grills me about whether I really believe there is a ‘perfect storm’ gathering over the communications industry, and about how we as an industry can combat and defeat the elements creating this.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

You know how sometimes you read the latest thoughts of a social media guru and get swept away by the wisdom they impart? You know how sometimes you can read two contradictory articles and be convinced by both of them? There’s a lot of rubbish out there in the world of digital communications.

In this straight-talking episode of the Digital Download podcast I chat to Danny Brown, a marketer with 20 years’ experience and formerly rated as one of the world’s most important marketing bloggers. I say formerly because a few years back he gave up blogging about marketing partly because he was sick of reading the same stuff from the same people and didn’t want to be part of the problem. Danny’s someone who’s not shy of giving an opinion, and in this show Danny and I talk about some of the rubbish we read about digital communications and how to cut through it.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

We’ve all got mobile phones with 8 or even 16 megapixel cameras on them. And we all know that imagery is vital when it comes to social media marketing. Which means we have the ability to fill our Instagram profiles without having to go anywhere near a costly professional photographer. Doesn’t it?

In this episode of the Digital Download podcast I talk to Andy Sutton, a commercial photographer with 15 years’ experience of product and lifestyle photography about how social media photography has evolved and about how when clients inevitably come back to him after trying (and failing with) their own photography, he is able to produce imagery that flies on social media to enhance campaigns and help drive sales and ROI.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has caused much confusion within the communications industry around the responsibilities of different parties and who needs to do what in order to comply. Very few seem to have any clarity and, rather like the movie franchise, it’s all a bit fifty shades of grey.

In this episode of the Digital Download podcast, I talk to founder of KC Communications Katrina Cliffe about the core areas of GDPR that PR and communications professionals need to understand and where they can get advice when they need it, and we dig into some of the detail of legacy data, ‘legitimate interest’ and data security. I also ask Katrina questions put to me by members of the Digital Download Membership community.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

Internal communications is an area of public relations that often gets missed when digital technology is discussed, largely because the likes of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all external-facing. But innovation in IC is arguably greater than outward-facing communications channels, with the likes of Office 365, Facebook Workplace, Yammer and Slack providing internal communicators with a plethora of platforms to choose from.

In this episode of the Digital Download podcast, I talk to Rachel Miller, founder of All Things IC, about how digital technology is impacting internal communications strategy, the opportunities digital tools provide and the challenges they present.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.

Contemporary PR and communications professionals face a challenging but exciting time. The explosion of digital technology, questions over ethical practice, the data revolution and the evolution of both internal and external facing digital platforms has prompted as many questions as it has provided answers.

In this episode of the Digital Download podcast, I seek to answer some of those questions with Deirdre Breakenridge, author of the unique new book ‘Answers for Modern Communicators’. Described as “a reference guide for modern PR practitioners”, the book is intended to provide communications professionals with solutions to their most pressing issues.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or thoughts. I read and reply to every single email, tweet or message.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please email it to a friend and/or share it on your favourite social media channels. You might also want to check out Digital Download Membership, which is like having an army of expert mentors to turn to who keep you updated with the latest digital and social media developments and provide feedback and opinions on your ideas.

And finally, it would also be very awesome and hugely appreciated if you’d be able to take a couple of minutes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, as this helps others discover Digital Download.