Since July 2009, I’ve been a regular contributor to the popular Marcom Professional site. Indeed, every fortnight, subscribers have been regaled with my peculiar thoughts on all things PR and marcom related via the Friday Round Up e-mail newsletter (every other week, the inimitable Mr Philip Sheldrake has done the honours).
As of next Monday (April 11th), Marcom Professional will be no more. But shed no tears. It is transmogrifying into the CIPR Conversation. This is good news. It brings a hugely expanded potential audience for contributor content. I also hope that it will provide CIPR members and the wider PR community with an excellent platform for learning and debate about the issues that really do matter to our profession.
I ‘d like to end by saying a big thank you to all of our existing Marcom Pro visitors and Friday Round Up readers. Our e-mail newsletters have a satisfyingly high open and click through rate – I hope you’ll continue to enjoy the content (and the conversation) – as well as benefitting from the expanded community that the new site will deliver.
Enough gushing – see below for the official announcement from the CIPR. Let The Conversation commence.
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The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is launching ‘The Conversation’ at its social media conference, 11 April. The Conversation is your one-stop shop for great blog posts by practitioners, consultancies, academia and students, from the UK and further afield. Syndicating your personal or company blog couldn’t be easier, allowing the wider PR community to find your content, find your personal, business and consultancy profiles, and respond to your news and points of view. Everyone is welcome to register themselves and their organisation.
In the spirit of The Conversation, the CIPR has invited some of the UK’s keenest PR bloggers to break this news.
There will be no need to ‘make friends’ all over again on The Conversation. Simply give your existing social networks permission to allow us to take a look at your network, your social graph as some call it, and we’ll make sure those relationships are established immediately on The Conversation (ie you won’t need to share your passwords with us). Hey presto, instant social glue.
The Conversation promises to be an exciting addition to the CIPR’s website, at least it will be with your input. It won’t match Facebook for functionality or LinkedIn for seeing who’s connected to whom, but it will be the first such attempt by a professional body to our knowledge. We hope you’ll jump in, and work with us as we iron out the inevitable glitch or two.
Following the successes of the CIPR social media panel – CIPR TV, ‘Social Summer’ events in 2010 and 2011, social media measurement guidance and input to ASA regulation – it’s apt that The Conversation will be launched at the CIPR social media conference. We hope to see you there.