As always in the Dinosaur caves we have been doing some blogger research recently. We have been looking at some of the best written blogs in the world of gardening, so I thought I would share the UK’s top 20 gardening blogs. I hope you find them useful – one thing is for sure I could do with the gardening tips as I am pretty useless in that department. If I have missed a great blog off this list, please feel free to add in the comments as always. Thanks 1. Shirl’s Garden Watch – Packed full of pictures, videos and information, Shril’s Garden Watch is a great website that is constantly updated. With the photos she’s taken you can follow ...

As you know in our day job at Dinosaur PR we are constantly running campaigns for clients that are targeting different audiences, sometimes these can be pretty dry and other times they can be very interesting. We are currently running a blogger outreach campaign for our client Storage Options as they have just launched a new product for cyclists and mountain bikers. It’s called BikeCam and it films from the helmet or handlebars – it’s a great little product and so we wanted ...

In recent weeks, I have been receiving an increasing amount of Linked-in connection requests and it has got me thinking. Now firstly I should point out I have a love hate relationship with Linked-in, some things I love about it and some things I hate. Also you don’t need to tell me about the benefits of connecting to people you have done business with or have met out a events. Linked-in is a brilliant platform for connecting to these people and sharing knowledge. The more connections ...

Last Thursday, I spent the evening presenting on social media in the finance sector to a room of delegates at Grant Thornton. When I present I prefer to use real life case studies of work that I have completed myself with my teams. However, when I came to the Q&A section I was asked a question which I found quite difficult to answer. They said: “I can see all of the benefits of running integrated campaigns in social media but what are the downsides to using social media?” I really struggled with this (granted I was stood up in front of about 60 delegates so I was on the spot a bit) so I thought for a while. And all ...

Sorry about this but I need to have a quick rant. I have been working in PR for more than a decade and using social media for around five years and the shift I have seen in the understanding levels of social media marketing has been great as the industry develops. I saw a piece the other day about Sony hiring one agency to do everything and thought, brilliant, people are finally getting it. However, one of my big bug bears now is that people seem to want to use social media on a purely tactical basis rather than actually thinking things through properly. They look for the easy quick win. If I hear another question like this “can you just ...

With all the hype during the last six or seven years around the explosion of social networking you could be led to believe that social media influencers drive everything and are going to take over the world now. You may also have been convinced that the day of the traditional media sources and good quality investigative journalism are over. Not so – it’s true social media is important and that we all tend to use different channels to share different things. For instance, hands up who hasn’t logged into Quora or Google+ in the last few days? Yes I can hear a few of you sheepishly hiding your  heads in shame – is that because 90% of the ...

If you are like me I imagine you have read quite a few posts before that give the usual advice about writing interesting and engaging content. Well I didn’t want to write something completely about the theory because I am always covering that type of stuff on here. As most of you know I manage a lot of social media communities for companies and brands of all sizes some regional, some national and others on a global basis. One thing I have noticed is that things have changed significantly in social media and online PR over the ...

Are you busy tomorrow? If not, you might want to make your way over to the Adelphi on Hunslet Road as I am speaking at a free seminar on the benefits of using social media for business. It’s the second of four seminars to be held by the organisers of this year’s Leeds Digital Festival. I attended the launch of the Festival’s new identity last week that I wrote about on Dinosaur PR’s blog. The Yorkshire Evening Post covered the event the other day. It is kind of a Q&A session with some of the leading lights on social media in the region and we will be debating some of the hot topics on this ...

I think I speak for most people when I say we have all been saddened by the recent events in Tottenham.  A young man called Mark Duggan was shot dead recently by the police and this has cause some unrest in the northern borough of London. It has been widely reported that social media but more importantly Twitter was responsible for gathering these individuals together. However, this isn’t true. Social media is just a means of modern day communication. I gave my initial thoughts about this in a ...

Err yes actually. I have been playing with Google+ as have most of the more techies I know and I have read a few interesting articles. However, if I see another Google+ post telling me how to use it I think I am going to scream. However, if that’s what you are actually looking for I would recommend having a read of this Guide from Mashable one as it is pretty useful at getting you started. The latest news is basically Google+ is growing very quickly ...