Need Help To Get Twittering? PR & News Industry Logs On To New Networking Website

01.07.2008 00:13:00

A new social networking website has been launched in the West of England to improve contacts within the PR and news media industry and to open a window on the world of ‘blogging’ and ‘Twittering’. The site is also supported by Liz Anderson of the Chartered Institue of Public relations in the West of England.

Basic Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, which allows users to send ‘news flashes’ around the world to laptops and mobiles, have transformed the business of ‘making and breaking’ the news.

Now a Bristol PR agency has developed www.prBristol.co.uk to stimulate blog debate about Web 2.0 and other industry issues and to share best practice. It also provides a ‘front page’ of up-to-the-minute news from RSS feeds and a less formal social space for ‘meeting and greeting’, called The Watering Hole.

Matt Anderson, Commercial Director of Bristol-based Montage Communications, built the site after realising that even his own industry’s awareness and understanding of Web 2.0 and ‘user generated content’ was limited, despite its growing impact on the news media and communications in general.

“Like many other offshoots of the Creative Industries sector, PR is quite fragmented and diverse, taking in PR agencies and in-house staff as well as sole practitioners and freelances,” he said. “prBristol.co.uk can provide a means of ‘conversation’ on the web and help bring people together.

“It will also help journalists to pinpoint stories and pictures that are relevant to them, rather than ploughing through dozens of emails of dubious value.”

The ‘blogosphere’, as it has become known, is an increasingly powerful force on the web, accounting for nearly two per cent of all UK website traffic – and it is growing all the time.

Matt added: “It will not replace face-to-face contact or ‘broadcast’ communication through the media and conventional websites but it will fill an important gap. That’s why we have set up a social space called The Watering Hole.

“Journalists and the PR industry are increasingly reliant on each other – we are all part of the news food chain. It makes sense to work together and to understand our respective responsibilities.”

Careful use of meta-tags linked to trusted websites and ever-changing content have helped to push www.prBristol.co.uk on to the front page of a Google search for ‘PR Bristol’ within a couple of weeks of the site going live – and without any overt marketing.

END

Author: Matt Anderson

Contact author: info@prbristol.co.uk

Web link: www.prbristol.co.uk