Did the feline position itself horizontally on the floor covering, or did the cat just sit on the mat?

Plain English, or Plain Language, is a term used to describe writing that’s easy to understand. It’s the opposite of gobbledygook.

Communicating is about the sharing of meaning, so it makes sense to write clearly and in a way that’s easy to understand. Documents that are hard, or impossible, to comprehend fail the basic test of communication.

The principles of Plain English are: avoid unneeded words; write in short sentences; and use the shortest possible word that conveys your meaning.

It’s not about dumbing down your writing – it’s about making your point clearly.

It takes time and practice to write in Plain English. As Mark Twain once said: “I’d have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time”.

For more information see:

The Plain English Campaign, UK.

Plain Language Australia.

My Post Graduate Writing Unit: Public Relations Writing and Tactics, Deakin University (available for online study).

Alison Coffa completed a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) this year, majoring in Public Relations and Journalism. She is now working as an Account Executive in a boutique Melbourne PR agency. Follow her on Twitter at @AlisonClareC .

Surviving a PR degree is as simple as ABC.

A – Aim high. The phrase ‘Ps get degrees’ gets thrown around a lot at university. While it’s true you can technically graduate by simply scraping through each of your subjects, you will set yourself up for a better theoretical knowledge and practical understanding if you knuckle down and do some reading every now and then. It will also help you keep on the good side of your tutors and lecturers. Making yourself noticed among a cohort of 100+ students can be difficult, so having a faculty staff member recognise your efforts can be a huge bonus.

Aiming high can also be extended beyond your grades. In everything you write or publish, particularly online, own it. Take a moment to proofread, check for errors, or re-consider your angle. Even in a simple tweet, think “is this helping my image?”, “is this presenting the image of the professional I want to be?”, “would I be happy with this in a month’s time?”. Aiming to go beyond the basic and taking care in all aspects of your work pays off.

B – Be proactive. PR is an ever-evolving industry and there’s a lot more to it than you’ll find in any text book. Follow some blogs, subscribe to some newsletters, read up on current trends and even try to write some articles yourself. Find out what channels work for you. Building a working understanding of the industry doesn’t have to mean reading pages of research and statistics – that’s what infographics are for!

Utilise the most valuable resource you have at your disposal: your lecturers. Often they’ll be current or ex-practitioners themselves and their own personal experience will be a lot more relevant and than an outdated prescribed reading. You will most likely also find them to be a great starting point for your own personal networking, and even a channel for finding out about internship and work opportunities.

C – Communicate, communicate, communicate. Incorporating both A and B, if you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Immerse yourself in the business you’re going in to and actually practise it. Write a blog, start a Twitter account, create and maintain a LinkedIn profile. Write articles for your university’s magazine. Contact a blog you like and pitch them an idea for a guest post. Get out in person and attend networking events, conferences, workshops and forums – and then write something summarising the event afterwards!

It’s important to take your learning out of the theoretical. Learning to put what you’ve studied into practise and actually following it through is vital, so you can enter the workforce after graduating with a set of practical skills – and a growing online portfolio to boot.

What’s the value of a good brand? To answer that question Aisha Kellaway travels to London to attend Brand Academy 2013. Follow Aisha on Twitter: @AishaKellaway

AS public relations professionals and students we understand our integral role in the representation of the brands that we work with; but how much do we know about the value of these brands, and the things we can do to ensure that this brand-value continues to increase?

Two weeks ago I ventured from Brighton to London and made my way to the Rosewood Hotel to attend Brand Academy 2013, an event presented by law-firm, Lewis Silkin, focusing this year on “Building Valuable Brands”.

There were five guest speakers who made a very impressive line-up. Each made their own presentations following which was a panel discussion and opportunity for Q & A.

The Speakers:

• Mike Rocha, Global Director of Brand Valuation from Interbrand talked about the best global brands and the analytical process Interbrand use to assess a brand’s value.
• Anthony Mullen, Senior Analyst for Interactive Marketing at Forrester Research discussed the importance of trust and transparency.
• Marcus Taylor,  CEO of Venture Harbour presented on how companies can use social media to build their brand value.
• Kelvin King from Valuation Consulting Co. spoke on the necessity of independence, innovation and transparency.
• Karl Bygrave, Director of Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics concluded with a discussion on whether ethics add or subtract from a brand.

Top takeaways from the evening:

Mike Rocha

Brands Should Deliver Three Things; Choice, Premium and Loyalty
The higher the demand for a specific brand in relation to its competitors, and the larger amount of choice driven by a brand, the higher the value of brand earnings, meaning a higher brand value.

Internal vs External Factors
There are both internal factors and external Factors which contribute to a brand’s overall strength. Internal factors align and prepare the organisation to deliver their chosen promise and the external factors ensure the brand’s impact on customer behaviour is maximised, relevant to competition. A brand will struggle if it only places importance on one of these areas. Strong brands generally start from within and then spread externally.

How Can You Be A Brand Leader?
Leading Brands have conviction, nurture their culture, surrender control – from B2B/B2C to B&B/B&C and deliver an experience, not just a product or service.

Anthony Mullen

Be Real Or Be Rejected
Trust has become a cornerstone value, consumers are becoming more savvy about controlling and tracking their data. We are also using social media more and more often to verify claims made by brands and marketers as to whether providers are actually delivering their promises.

There Is A Window Of Opportunity
We’re facing a window of opportunity where brands can use technology to better understand and serve our customers in responsible way that engenders trust and loyalty. This in turn will build brand value.

Can You Re-gain Lost Trust?
After losing the trust of your audience, it’s hard to re-build it but it can be done with full recognition and acceptance of fault, an apology and transparency in how you will better serve your consumers.

Marcus Taylor

Your Reputation Precedes You
Building your brand is another way of saying “improving your reputation”. Why this is so important is that your reputation precedes you. If this reputation is positive, most of your hard work is done for you.

Why Use Digital Media To Build Your Reputation?
It’s not only where the people are, it’s also where conversations and buying decisions are taking place. In such a competitive marketplace, if you don’t… it’s very likely your competitors will.

Use Social Media To Transfer Trust To Your Brand
Social media platforms are a place people share with those whose opinions and thoughts they trust. Embracing social media enables us to transfer some of that trust onto things people typically trust least, such as brands and marketers, through recommendations, shares and likes.

Create Conversations Around The Brand, Not About The Brand
People don’t want to read advertisements or marketing speil, they want to read what interests them. If you can connect your brand to a common interest shared by your target audience and create quality content surrounding that, your brand’s reputation within that field will rise and this engenders loyalty. A great example here is Red Bull and how the brand has embraced Extreme Sports.

Buzz Dies Down, Advocacy Doesn’t
Spend your best efforts engendering loyalty and creating advocates for your brand. This is what will drive trust naturally, and these advocates will do most of the hard work for you.

Kelvin King

A Strong Brand Is Like A Building, It’s Built From The Ground Up
A lot of brands attempt to start at the top and build down. A strong, valuable brand needs strong foundations. Not just financial and economic, but to do with awareness, attitude, loyalty, strategies and management.

Karl Bygrave

Not Everyone Believes In Everything
Learn that not everyone will believe what you preach and accept that this is okay. Focus your energy on the believers and grow their loyalty rather than attempting to convert those with opposing values.

Is It Okay To Upset More People Than You Appeal To?
In Lush’s case, Karl believes that anyone they upset, should be upset. Marketing campaigns surrounding ethics are naturally going to offend/upset people of opposing beliefs. Ensure you are doing it for the right reasons.

Do Ethics Add Or Subtract From The Value Of A Brand?
Ethics have the potential to add to the value of your brand, but they also have the potential to do a lot of damage and upset a lot of people. Ethics will almost always add to your brand if the brand openly communicate these ethics, show full transparency and have integrity.

Final Words:

Transparency was definitely the buzz word of the evening, and I came away from the evening with my head whirring in the best possible way, I’m certainly looking forward to applying this better understanding with any and all brands I represent, and analysing the choices I’ve made and where I place my own brand loyalty.

If you own a smartphone, you carry a video recording studio around in your pocket. Here are some tips to get the most from it.

SHOOTING video with your smartphone is pretty easy. Shooting great video with your smartphone is slightly harder, but it is possible with some practice.

Vimeo Video School has some great tutorials including this one for mobile video:

My tip is to practice using the video function as often as you can. At family events, on the weekend, or while you’re waiting for a train. Each time you make a video, you learn something new. Practice, and when it comes time to shoot a video for business, you’ll be able to get the job done quickly, and with some great footage.

Here’s a short video I produced on the way to a multimedia workshop. It’s not going to win an Academy Award, but I had fun, and improved my video shooting and editing skills. Next time I NEED to shoot a video, I’ll be able to do so confidently.

Want to know how many people scanned your QR code? This video tutorial will help.

Tracking QR Codes from the MediaPod on Vimeo.

The date for the 2014 PR Student Forum has been set. Get ready for a fantastic 4th Annual PR Student Forum.

The 2014 PR Student Forum will be held at Victoria University 2 October 2014. The theme for the Forum is “Social and mobile PR Communication”. If you missed this year’s Forum, here’s a recap: