A couple of weeks ago we were invited along to celebrate the launch of the bag designed  by fashion blogger Emily Johnston of Fashion Fois Gras, in collaboration with leading American luxury brand Coach. It's interesting to see such a huge shift in the industry with brands increasingly not just keeping an eye on bloggers but collaborating with them. With Bip Ling becoming the new face of Forever 21 and Susie Bubble working on the Topshop 'Edited Project', it was only a matter of time before luxury brands came on board too. The bag has been designed to meet the needs of a busy blogger. The oversized tote has different compartments for a large SLR camera, a spare pair of flat shoes, an IPad and a phone - it's a bloggers dream bag! The event was a huge success with a great turn out (more than 100 people) and it was good to see so many familiar faces and fellow bloggers come to support Emily including Disney Roller Girl, Mademoiselle Robot, and Freak Deluxe . It was also...

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Working as a PR consultant in a SEO agency, I get sent requests from journalists on a daily basis. These requests for stories, products or just general information can often result in fantastic (linked) coverage for our clients on high-profile websites such as Handbag.com and Guardian.co.uk but recently I've noticed more and more requests coming in from, shall we say, less traditional media outlets... Retailers! In the past few weeks alone, I've spotted Boden seeking contributions for its 'new community blog' and Dune looking for 'fabulous products, across all luxury lifestyle sectors for placement in the Dune Loves grid'. It's refreshing to see - because at long last it means that fashion retailers are recognising that in such competitive online selling spaces, product alone is simply not enough to bring traffic to your website, engage shoppers and convince them to buy. Product alone won't keep them coming back either. But quality content will. Take a look at...

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When you’re talking with your friends, the last thing you’d expect or even want, is for a stranger to come and interrupt you mid sentence by shouting about how great they are. If they did want to join in with your conversation, their best tactic would be hang round in similar places as you, become familiar with your interests and wait for the right moment to politely introduce themselves. Next they should ask a few questions about you and most importantly LISTEN so they can start to understand your likes and dislikes. Then you probably wouldn’t mind if they started offering useful related stories and information in the flow of the conversation. How about they then used all the information they had learnt and threw a party – where the food and music were exactly to your taste. You’d probably go. And you’d probably bring your like minded mates with you. And during the party you’d also probably be happy to listen to the host with an open mind about what they have to...

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The recently reported news that the Office of Fair Trading is looking to prosecute companies who pay bloggers for positive coverage of their products makes interesting news for all of us at Propellernet. Why would anyone offering quality content need to pay for coverage? Our approach has always been to develop content that offers genuine value to our target media, be that amateur bloggers, professional bloggers, or standard online media.  The fact that we use search personas and that we’re specialists in the travel and retail sectors means that we know the key media contacts well and we’re able to determine which sites are right for our clients’ target audience quickly and easily.   From there we use various inputs to determine what content will prove valuable both to our clients’ target audience and to the media that we’re targeting. The result of this approach is that we value good relations with all our key contacts from bloggers to journalists (regularly...

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The big news in the travel industry this week was that the official star ratings for hotels is expected to be superseded by online review scores. According to John Penrose, the Tourism Minister, the current system is out of date and does not accurately reflect holidaymakers' concerns. "We are going to be publishing our tourism strategy next month and in that we back a consumer-led system like Trip Advisor rather than traditional star-rating systems." - Source: Independent.co.uk Despite the fact that the move is expected to be resisted by hoteliers, many of whom have spoken out about review sites in the wake of the TripAdvisor row, I agree with the minister. Read the rest of this entry...

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As the flags are removed from windows and cars, the nation comes to terms with the fact that England are out of the World Cup after suffering the devastating 4-1 defeat to Germany. However, as the country calls for an inquiry into that missed goal, there is an industry that is quietly celebrating. Months ago, those working in the travel industry had braced themselves for the expected downturn in bookings during the tournament. Tour operators for South Africa were busy with fans traveling out to watch the matches but the majority of travel agents expected the month of June to be worryingly quiet. Booking trends show that many Brits suspend their holiday plans until the big football tournaments are over. This year was no different and the start of June remained slow with England fans determined to stay home and venture no further than their local. Read the rest of this entry...

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On the 14th April 2010 something big erupted in the travel industry, or as one of our clients called it: an ashtrocity! The Icelandic volcano, called Eyjafjallajökull, ejected volcanic ash to heights in excess of 30,000ft and few could have predicted the chaos and millions of pounds it would cost the travel industry and the economy. With huge amounts of ash in the atmosphere, controlled airspace in the UK was shut down for fear of damage to the aircraft engines. By the 17th April, there was a no fly zone in the airspace of more than 25 countries. This resulted in the largest air traffic shut-down since World War II and caused millions of passengers to be stranded not only in Europe, but across the world. Airspace was closed for six days; a decision which was later criticised by most airlines who were suffering huge financial losses. According to Giovanni Bisignani, the Director General of The Air Transport Association, the ash crisis cost the airline industry up to £130...

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When we started looking into the world of video-SEO at the beginning of this year, we came across a number of technologies which we knew would allow us to get really creative and generate some great results for our clients. One of the most exciting technologies was hotspotting; the creation of an interactive, clickable layer on a video which allows viewers to interact with what they are seeing. We loved it because it fitted nicely with our SEO-PR ethos- that is, developing creative ways to gain links and selling these creative ideas in to the media from a PR perspective- and complimented the existing work we were doing for our retail clients. Westfield London shopping centre was one of these clients and footage of the ‘Greatest Fashion Show on Earth’ event struck us as the perfect opportunity to create our first hotspotted video. By creating a virtual front row, we could bring the excitement of a catwalk show to life for fashion fans who could not attend the fabulous event...

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2010 is my 8th year in PR and this June will not only see in the World Cup (Come on England!) but it will also be my 18th month in SEO-PR and what a whirlwind those 18 months have been! In those first few hazy months of arriving at Propellernet towers, never did I think that a) mixing the worlds of search and PR would be so exciting and b) that a year and a half down the line the excitement, learning and innovation would still be going strong. Walking into a search agency was a whole new world to me. I was used to crazy PR offices, being surrounded by products and it being quite normal for people to be shouting over banging music, over ringing phones and at each other. So, when I was welcomed in by the cool, calm and collected Propellernet team I knew it was going to be quite a different experience. There was a firm handshake and we were straight to work on sharing, learning, a little heated debating and on to creating what we now know as the real SEO-PR partnership; forming what...

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Ask someone what Online PR is and the usual response refers to distributing press releases online via a newswire service, possibly with some keywords included. But in truth, true online PR is much more than this and if done well it can have an incredible impact, not just on the traditional benefits of PR around brand awareness, but on the measureable and definable benefits of your search engine rankings, advocacy, traffic and sales. In this seminar from Internet World 2010 Lucy talks about how we've achieved long lasting creative editorial links for our clients on authoritative sites like the telegraph.co.uk, bbc.co.uk, ivillage.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk and guardian.co.uk. Lucy also delves into the realm of media mapping, persona targeting, building strong relationships journalists and how important it is to develop expertise in these areas to guarantee a positive impact on your search rankings, ultimately driving brand awareness and additional revenue. Read the rest of...

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