Skout Stories

When it comes to launching a specific product or service,...

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 06:06:31 -0400

When it comes to launching a specific product or service, targeted press coverage can often lead to the greatest rewards.

Our client Redstone recently launched an exclusive cloud service for businesses in and around the city of Cambridge, so getting the story covered by the major local paper, The Cambridge News, was our number one priority!

Full coverage of the launch can be found here.

Are you a Google ogler? We’ve just loved ogling these...

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:54:17 -0400

Are you a Google ogler?

We’ve just loved ogling these galleries of Google’s data centre insides (there are also ones of its people and places).

Aside from the cleverly branded pipes painted in Google’s colours, it shows that even racks of tapes and servers and cabling can be used to create a story through great photography.

Which one’s your favorite? We like the Google bike!

According to Reuters, British troops will soon be going into...

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:04:00 -0400

According to Reuters, British troops will soon be going into battle fuelled by the familiar flavours of Greggs’ pasties.

They have agreed a deal with the NAAFI to supply a British army base in Germany with the savouries and if the trial proves to be a success, we could soon see our favourite sausage rolls and chicken bakes making their way onto the front line.

Could this be part of the Newcastle based Greggs’ master plan to take over the world?

My old flat in the city centre of Manchester had 4 shops within one minutes walking distance and in my previous job at an international college Greggs was certainly the number one lunch time destination for the foreign students!

This is brilliant, someone has turned an iPad into a typewriter!...

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 06:35:15 -0400

This is brilliant, someone has turned an iPad into a typewriter! Thanks to Ingenious Creative for highlighting the story, you can read all about it over at fastcodedesign.com

What old technology would you like to see making a return?

Here at Skout PR we are getting our in house social media in order, ready for the launch of...

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 09:43:26 -0400

Here at Skout PR we are getting our in house social media in order, ready for the launch of our new website.

We have recently signed up to Postling, which will act as one of our social media management tools. It has excellent integration with bit.ly our URL shortner and has an easy to use post scheduler.

This is a test to see how well it can handle posting to Tumblr. I’ll see you on the other side, let’s hope for a good result :)

An ice cream parlour in Philadelphia recently unleashed a couple...

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:43:00 -0400

An ice cream parlour in Philadelphia recently unleashed a couple creepy adverts on to internet. Do they make you want to go out and enjoy one of their ice creams, or simply freak out?

Personally, I am undecided. But if I do every pass through Philly on a hot summer’s day I’ll be sure to check it out. Maybe it does work after all!

Whatever the case may be it has already gone viral on Youtube, with over 500,000 views in 5 days, generating plenty of discussion. Here is the other one…

I am not sure if anyone else saw this last week? A man in New...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:20:00 -0400

I am not sure if anyone else saw this last week?

A man in New York is handed a $50 bill and a coded message by a tramp on the subway. He then posts the story and a picture of message and the note onto the popular Reddit website. It quickly becomes one of the most popular threads on the site and through the collective power of the internet the code is cracked. The message instructs the man to go and meet a Blu-Jay on the 19th July at a specific location in New York.

Things then get even stranger! He was then supposedly contacted through Reddit by the man who had handed him the message, this time with a new code, which again, was quickly solved by the internet sleuths. The new message instructed him to go and meet this ‘Blu-Jay’ in the same place but at 4pm on Friday instead!

By now the story had gone viral and hundreds of people descended on the meeting point at the specified time, there was even a livestream set up on Ustream beaming pictures all over the world. Sadly the OP was late and the meeting never actually occurred leaving many disappointed. The conspiracy theorists quickly went into overdrive, with many people suspecting a viral marketing campaign, however the OP has since started to receive threatening phone calls and has removed himself from Reddit to hide himself from any more abuse!

You can read all about it on Mashable by clicking the picture above, it really is a stranger than fiction tale!

Have you checked your privacy settings on Facebook recently?...

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:38:02 -0400

Have you checked your privacy settings on Facebook recently? When it comes to social media people seem hell-bent on giving away potentially damaging personal information.

This little experiment from Callum Haywood aims to highlight just how easy it is to get hold of information and comments that may only have been intended for our close friends.

Next time you want slag off the boss or tell people your new mobile number, you might think twice about doing so through the Facebook timeline, or at the very least, take the time out to check that they are only being received by the intended recipients!

I was just putting together a new Skout Stories, trying to get...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:05:09 -0400

I was just putting together a new Skout Stories, trying to get back into the swing after my holiday and I find Twitter is now down, meaning we currently have no medium to project our story on to the world!

With that in mind, I have made a last minute editorial decision to run with a Twitter is down story instead, leading to the question:

What would we do in a world without Twitter?

I am not sure the media industry would be able to survive!

Skout PR Guest Blog: Andrew Thorp, co-founder of Mojolife On the...

Wed, 23 May 2012 07:32:16 -0400

Skout PR Guest Blog: Andrew Thorp, co-founder of Mojolife

On the Skout PR blog we like to feature regular guest posts in order to give you a real variety of expert opinion in regards to social media, PR and the world of communication.

This month we’re featuring a guest blog post from Andrew Thorp, a speaker and communications skills coach and co-founder of MojoLife in Manchester. At Skout we believe the best PR results come from spending time finding, crafting and articulating a client’s best stories. This is very much Andrew’s ethos too, but in terms of general business communication, as you’ll see below. Thanks Andrew!

Are you a B2B marketer? Are you looking to make social media...

Wed, 09 May 2012 05:24:27 -0400

Are you a B2B marketer? Are you looking to make social media more effective for your business? Then take a trip over to the Skout PR blog, where we introduce the social media hub.

Since putting that blog post together I have also come across another great example of a social media hub from the IT company Brocade. I would highly recommend taking a look at how they have built an online community, which is underpinned by expert blogs and video content.

This week we have learnt that maybe not all footballers are...

Wed, 02 May 2012 05:57:00 -0400

This week we have learnt that maybe not all footballers are stupid!

Not only did Vincent Kompany get the winner in Monday night’s (possibly) title deciding derby, he is also studying for a degree in business administration. Certainly no mean feat! You can read more about it here at the Mail.

However, the biggest surprise this week was Joey Barton’s appearance on Newsnight, where he was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman about England’s appointment of Roy Hodgson. I must say he came across very well indeed and talked a lot of sense about the north, south divide when it comes to the England national team.

Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself over at the BBC website.

Do you know of any other bright sparks plying their trade in the Premier League?

Happy St. Georges Day from Skout PR, and more importantly, happy...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:38:00 -0400

Happy St. Georges Day from Skout PR, and more importantly, happy 30th birthday to the ZX Spectrum!

The first computer game I ever played was on one of these, it belonged to my friend’s brother and I usually found that by the time the game had loaded from the tape my mum would come to take me home!

A popular choice at Skout HQ here are some of our favourite games. Can you remember yours?

IK+ (complete with loading screen):

Daley Thompson Decathlon:

Manic Miner:

Skout PR b2b client coverage: Plasma Clean It all got very...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:09:00 -0400

Skout PR b2b client coverage: Plasma Clean

It all got very exciting for me this morning at Skout HQ as I finally received some post with my name on it :)

The envelope was immediately opened and inside I found two crisp copies of Hotel Owner magazine which could only mean one thing, they had run our latest Plasma Clean article!

The 2 page spread takes a look at how hotels can rid themselves of bad odours, providing customers with the 5-star nasal treatment and it was well received by the editorial staff at the publication who had never covered this subject matter before.

We feel it is another prime example of how we help our clients find rich PR content from inside their businesses that can then be turned into great stories for the media. If you want to learn more about how your business can achieve fantastic PR results then check out our latest blog post from Skout PR managing director, Rob Skinner.

Have a great weekend!

Chris

Skout PR b2b client coverage: vielife The last couple of weeks...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:37:00 -0400

Skout PR b2b client coverage: vielife

The last couple of weeks have been hectic at Skout PR but it has been more than worth it with some excellent client coverage coming through, especially for our client vielife, the online health and wellbeing solutions provider!

Months of hard work from Skout PR and vielife has finally paid off with the client receiving fantastic coverage based around a story taken from a sleep data sample of 40,000 Britons. The figures show that over 1 million of us don’t get any where near enough sleep and are living our lives in what has been coined a ‘sleep drunk’ state!

Dr Tony Massey, chief medical officer at vielife, was on hand to elaborate on this very serious but often overlooked health issue and an exclusive interview with The Observer led to a great piece of coverage on p6 of The Observer on the 1st April.

Popular with the nationals, it was also covered online at The Guardian, The Mail and The Daily Express and was even debated on BBC West Midlands after a live interview with vielife spokeswoman Jess Colling.

Elsewhere saw coverage at Human Resources and People Management and whole host of other trade and specialist publications.

Want to know why this story was so popular? Then check out the latest blog post from Skout PR managing director Rob Skinner. He gives us an insight into what makes the best PR stories and explains how at Skout PR we always leave no stone unturned when helping our clients discover their most precious PR assets!

Wow what can I say - it has been a very busy week here at Skout...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:55:51 -0400

Wow what can I say - it has been a very busy week here at Skout PR with the boss away so apologies for the lack of updates to Skout Stories!

Anyway before I set off for the extended bank holiday weekend I thought I would leave you with a short video from Google showcasing some fascinating technology, which could be just around the corner.

Happy Easter everyone from Skout PR:)

Skout PR client coverage: A very special mention to our client...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 04:49:00 -0400

Skout PR client coverage:

A very special mention to our client Redstone this week who’s BTCC (British Touring Car Championship) kicks off this season at Brands Hatch this weekend.

Redstone Racing will be entering 3 cars into the BTCC this season, with driver Matt Jackson tipped for possible success.

It should be a very exciting season ahead for and we wish the whole team the very best of luck for 2012!

Skout PR b2b client coverage: Plasma Clean Plasma Clean are a...

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:22:40 -0400

Skout PR b2b client coverage: Plasma Clean

Plasma Clean are a leading UK odour and grease control specialists. One of the most innovative companies in their field, we have recently helped to generate coverage around their new product launch.

The Plasma Clean Grease Bloc filtration system, powered by their very own ‘Zebra’ technology has been released into commercial kitchens, lowering insurance premiums and fire risk.

You can read more in the M.E.N by clicking the image above.

Skout PR b2b client coverage: Wax Digital We hope like us you...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:07:31 -0400

Skout PR b2b client coverage: Wax Digital

We hope like us you are collecting the latest top trump cards from Wax Digital over at the Supply Management blog.

This week Temeena Hussain is taking a look at how you can get the best deal on your IT consumables. Click the pic for more!

Creative League Winter 2011/2012 Round-up Another season of the...

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 08:05:35 -0400

Creative League Winter 2011/2012 Round-up

Another season of the Creative League has come to a close (they really do come thick and fast) and Skout PR had to play 2 games in a row on the final day while registering some much needed points on the board to ensure survival in Division 2.

With 4 out of the 6 teams involved and both games against relegation rivals it was going to be a very tense evening and after 2 matches Skout managed to grab a win and a draw elevating them to the heady heights of 3rd in the table.

It has been great being able to play in a more competitive division and Skout is looking forward to some more good games next week as the new season kicks off.

There really is no respite!