Is any publicity good publicity?

In the wake of the most recent student protests in Parliment Square yesterday it seems that students and others who have been protesting are behaving like violent thugs and ruining it for everyone who wants  to protest peacfully. This of course is true, however how much publicity would these protest have had if they were simply a few people picketing peacfully?

I understand that of course violence is not the answer and will undoubtedly cast a shadow over the message the students are trying to get across about tuition fees but the amount of publicity this has attracted has been increased dramatically due to the sheer volume of people and the bad behavour of some. surely to get the message heard, it needs to be heavily publicised. I know this isnt in the minds of some of the unruly youngsters who turned up yesterday and at the Millbank tower, but surely any publicity is good publicity?

I know that when Nick Clegg pledged to abolish tuition fees in his manifesto, along with other promises to look after the younger generation, it encouraged alot of young people to vote for Lib Dem and now I think they feel short changed, this is yet again a generation that will grow up feeling resentment to their government, because we are paying for the problems the previous generation have caused. Will they listen though? I doubt it.

Do you think any publicity is good publicity? or do you think that a minority are abusing our right to freedom of speech and peacful protest by behaving like thugs? Do you thing the negative publicity is making all young people look bad, and losing the focus of the message?

Facebook New Groups

Check out this simple presentation on how Facebook groups can be a bigger problem than they seem, when a PR proffessional has several stakeholder groups to communicate with, how do they stop them from overlapping on social media sites? I welcome your thoughts on this!

Facebook New Groups

View more presentations from Jean Dobey.

Photo fun

For as long as photography has been around people have used images to promote, provoke, spark interest and generate interest and one of the most popular subjects to photograph is travel.

Even before the phenomenon of online photo sharing, people were using travel photography as an advertising and PR tool. It seems obvious that when promoting a product or place that an image is an effective way of enticing people to part with their money, but how is photography used as an effective PR tool?

For one, photography is used to bring people together, whether that be through a competition, a discussion or a beautiful collection for everyone to enjoy, it creates a ‘community’ and this community will have opinions and perceptions, public relations can be used to not only create these communities but to ‘manage’ them. 

what do you think about photo competitions online? Do you enter these kinds of competitions? Why do you think people are so interested in other peoples travels? let me know!