Well, what a month that was. From consecutive days of 30-degree plus heat, to our major new client, award nominations, and participation in a groundbreaking national apprenticeship scheme, there’s a lot to talk about.
Not least Abellio, part owners of Northern Rail, Merseyrail, and Greater Anglia train operators. Following a competitive pitching process Smoking Gun PR was awarded a brief to execute a brand new national public relations campaign to help promote the company’s Bike & Go scheme, a £1.65million initiative aimed at rolling out bicycle rental facilities for rail commuters across the UK.
We’re also delighted to have taken on board Sam Hutchinson as a social media apprentice. Part of a wider City & Guilds qualification, she’ll join the team as one of the first young professionals to undertake this scheme, and in return for her time will receive first class training and on the job education in mastering the overwhelming realm of networks, blogs, and similar websites.
Although winter seems like a distant future right now the industry award ceremonies are already etched into our calendar, and CIPR’s PRide North West shortlist has just been announced. After picking up five gongs last year, it’s an honour to have been nominated in the Best Consumer Relations, Not-for-Profit, Technology, Digital, and Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign categories for 2013. Roll on November then.
Albeit before that we can look forward to the Mancoolian Awards in October, which celebrate the great and good of our home city. Misprint or not at the moment our own MD Rick Guttridge is down as being in the running for Marketing & Communications Personality of the Year, so fingers crossed someone makes a sensible decision on that front (click here to cast your own vote).
And, in addition to all that, Smoking Gun PR recently ranked third for Twitter usage in a league table of prominent Manchester PR companies, based on research by Online Ventures. Taking into account regularity, re-tweet rate, usefulness of content and more, it’s a small but hard earned pat on the back. Don’t worry too much, though, none of this is going to our heads, which remain firmly focused screen-wards as we continue in the same vein as ever- working tirelessly to achieve great results, such as the durgol We Love Coffee Community we have been overseeing, which has seen an increase of more than 1,000 Facebook fans in the last four weeks alone, in part spurred on by our quest to find what bean-drinkers prefer- Cappuccino or Latte (click here to have your say; today’s the last chance).