Interview with Essential Retail editor, Ben Sillitoe

Spark recently caught up with Essential Retail’s editor, Ben Sillitoe, to provide us with an insight into the publication, how PR’s can best work with him, and his thoughts on the future of retail.  

What is the main purpose of Essential Retail **and how will the** title evolve over the ne...

Who remembers MSN? Four predictions for the future of social media

We’ve come a long way since MSN messenger. Who remembers antagonising their mum by hogging the internet? Rendering the landline useless and delaying that all important phone call?

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook, the internet phenomenon that heralded the age of social media. Fast forwar...

Engaging with IT journalists has more benefits than just press coverage

I noticed a sudden spike in web traffic after Tristan’s recent blog about asking for copy approval. Most of this traffic came via Twitter from other PR agencies, largely because they follow Jess Twentyman, and she had retweeted the link to the blog. 

PRs follow journalists because we want to k...

And the winner is…? Top tips for a successful award entry

Last week I attended the PRmoment Awards, as Spark was shortlisted in the category for best B2B PR Campaign for the work we carried out for iPass around its Wi-Fi Growth Map. Unfortunately we didn’t win, but it did get me thinking about awards more generally and the role they play in PR and mark...

Can I have copy approval? 5 ways to prevent this (coverage) killer question from cropping up

It’s simple: don’t. Asking for copy approval is the easiest and most sure-fire way to kill an interview stone-dead and blow any rapport you’ve established with the journalist out of the water.

Asking for copy approval at the end of an interview creates a problem for a number of reasons. These have...