Laurel Papworth

I’ve been working with a PR agency for a while (best part of a year) and one key concept is that Public Relations is about managing multiple Publics. If you have the relationship with the community, and they like and respect you,  it’s tough to turf you out and go with a competitor agency. Build and manage the community and you automatically take on a “public relations manager” role.

How does it work? Well, what if you manage PR for a cosmetic company? Today you do your best to get them articles in women’s magazines, hand out free samples and so on. But tomorrow, the company that manages say, the largest community of women in the right demographic online, becomes a public relations company. Companies approach them and ask if they can talk to the members, and advice on the best way of engaging with them. External PR consultants will know which community managers to approach and how to approach them. It’s going to be easier than managing a whole swathe of bloggers and twitterers and Facebook page owners. But still, an intermediary sets the parameters for discourse:

McCann Worldwide Group (Jobs Problogger)

Seeking Australian mum bloggers to write about what they love to write about

What we need

Firstly, we’d like to apologise: ‘mum bloggers’ isn’t a great term but at least it got your attention.

We’re currently on the lookout for Australian mums (with kids under 10) who can write their socks off. We’re working with a variety of large companies on building great content-rich websites, many of which will focus on mums.

Depending on who puts their hand up, we can work with you in a variety of ways – retainer (eg 10 articles per month), one-off hero posts, and possibly part-time to full-time. We just need to see who’s out there.

What we’re looking for:
- Proven experience in the online content space
- The ability to turn a personal story into a universal lesson
- Headlines that snap readers’ attention
- Content you’ve made online that people have linked to and commented on

It’s pretty broad, really.

There are two types of content we’re looking for:
- Personal stories turned into lessons
- SEO-inspired brilliance

About McCann Sydney

McCann is one of the oldest and biggest advertising businesses in the world. In Sydney, we’ve been furtively re-shaping. We have a whole lot of work coming out in the second half of 2010 that people simply would not expect from us. We’re evolving our approach, processes and culture to create something very different and meaningful.

We’ve kept our heads down this year, focusing on action – not words. And off the back of this focus, we now need to find some likeminded vagabonds to help us on our new trajectory.

http://www.mccann.com.au

How to apply

Applying

If you’d like to apply please email contact@mccann.com.au with:
- A link to 3-5 examples of your best (and most interacted with) online content
- Your CV and link to a LinkedIn profile if you have one
- Topics you believe you are excellent at writing about
- Your knowledge of search engine optimisation (rate yourself out of 10)
- What sort of work situation you’d be looking for from us (freelance, part-time etc)

Posted on: 06/21

See what they are doing? Clever clogs.

As a community manager you ARE the public relations manager. And you should send packing any PR people who try to run a campaign on your community without your consent. Whirlpool.net.au do a brilliant job of sending any interlopers off – including politicians and their spin. (s)He who has the relationship, wins. Twas ever thus.

Hat Tip: Duncan Riley who tweeted it.