Facttactic

Corporate and technical writers

Public Relations

will nude photos help Pauline H?!

Controversial Australian former politician Pauline Hanson, who has made and lost a career on race-based policies, is trying to make her umpteenth political comeback – this time on an anti Muslim and African platform. Er, is that a vote winner, Pauline?

While on the campaign trail, she has reportedly been shocked by nude photos of herself from the 1970s being published in newspapers and websites around the world after an old boyfriend sold them.

But one wonders if, given the nature of her policies, she should stop being embarrassed by the photos and realise that they may be the only (ever-so-slightly) positive and widespread publicity that she will get!

Update (16 March): Some commentators say it a deliberate political ploy. Pauline says it is not her in the photos. Whatever the story, she certainly knows how to play up the publicity!

Update (22 March): Pauline wasn’t elected. The Australian newspaper that broke the nude photo story has apologised to her saying the photos were of some one else and they had been fooled by a con-man.

great event, poor IT back-up, bad press

A couple of weeks back we posted about the world’s best job – a hugely successful social media competition that had spanned the world and gained vast positive publicity for its tourism cause.

Recently the press has been pretty negative: the competition is still a great success but the IT systems to run it have not been up to scratch causing the website to crash under the weight of people wanting to submit entries.

I guess the impetus of the campaign will carry organisers past this, but it’s an unnecessary stain on an otherwise creative success. A good example, if ever there was one, that you gotta have your systems sorted if you’re online.

10 essential tips for a social media launch

Some good tips here (thanks Social Computing Magazine) on how to launch a social media campaign, keep it real and keep it tied into and integrated with the rest of your PR and marketing efforts.

There’s explanations of some good dos and don’ts, including — don’t let your social media strategy be an orphan; don’t stand in a corner, get out there and dance; don’t get distracted by those fireworks; don’t go it alone, Cowboy.

    But wait, there’s more! No, not a free Ginzu knife, but they also offer some basic but sound advice on five ways to integrate social media with public relations.

    opt-in PR: that can’t work!

    Opt-in PR: letting the media actually choose if they want to receive information from a PR agency.

    Kinda sounds like a death knoll to all us hardworking PRs working to get our clients noticed (!), but a PR guy in the U.S is banking his business on it and, so far, reportedly, has had 165 media outlets signing up.

    The gourmet food publicist clearly has a good feel for the taste of his media contacts.

    social media takes ‘best job in the world’ global

    Following on from yesterday’s post on a political social media campaign gone global, have a look at this tourism campaign featuring a competition to win ‘the best job in the world’.

    Around 20,000 people from over 180 countries have so far applied! The Australian promotion has been going since last month but it is still so strong that this week the organiser’s reported that their website fell over due to the high number of visitors.

    The winner of the competition gets to be ‘Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef’ and will be paid to live in a luxury villa for six months, and explore, swim, snorkel and also blog about their experiences.

    Applicants’ 60-second video clip entries have been uploaded to the competition’s website, driving huge numbers of visitors to the site to check them out.  (By the way, the competition closes Monday!)

    Once again, a brilliant example of social media well-executed and showing its power to reach and engage global audiences, and posted here to show social media’s potential for powerful PR.