Asbestos, Twitter and graduate jobs

It’s been a varied couple of weeks in the world of GBPR. From Asbestos awareness seminars for business and building owners, the use of social media such as Twitter for businesses to the job market for graduates – variety is indeed the spice of working life here. See http://www.oisltd.co.uk/ for free asbestos briefings in Oxford on 3 and 5 June.


For those relatively new to blogging, SEOptimise has inspired huge respect with its AdAge Power 150 List blog – see www.seoptimise.com/blog. The Top 10 Popular Posts section is good for practical advice on online marketing and SEO. Impressively, the blog has more than 2,600 readers and is followed by more than 1,770 Twitter users.


Recent social media news includes new business tools likely to be introduced this year on Twitter, and Confused.com holding the first PR pitch via Twitter ‘Twitch’ (see PRWeek) - it’s certainly an ever-changing and exciting area to be working in.


A more challenging, but not necessarily as gloomy as portrayed topic is the job market. With the recent news that jobs for graduates and school leavers are harder to come by this year than ever before, GBPR has been working with independent recruitment agency Allen Associates to advise on what graduates can do to secure work. http://www.allen-associates.co.uk/

Media frenzy - charity success

April was a busy but successful month organising the PR around the OX5 Run - a charity fun run which David Cameron joined in to raise money for the Oxford Children's Hospital.

More than 700 fun runners jogged the five-mile route around the grounds of Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. Hailed as the most successful OX5 Run to date for the hospital - it’s expected to raise over £50,000 once all the sponsorship is received at the end of June.

My client recruitment firm Allen Associates, sponsors of the charity fun run,

were delighted with the media coverage leveraged in the regional media, (BBC Oxford, JackFM, Oxford Mail, BBC TV South and ITV Meridian) and with the national media attention on the day and post- event (Daily Telegraph, Metro, Hello, Daily Express, Daily Mail etc).

Inviting David Cameron to come along to support the race was a key to the event's sucess - I think his presence there, and the fact he not only started but ran the race, played a huge part in inspiring people to take part.

I also committed to running the five miles around the grounds to raise funds for the hospital. So after briefing PR photographer John Hunt to take the essential set up shots with my client - the event's sponsors - and organisers with David Cameron, and greeting the national media, I headed to the start line. Ending up in the front row line-up having organised the photos I was worried about being trampled by the serious runners, but was able to make way for them OK, phew.

I finished the route in 47 minutes, just three minutes behind Cameron! I was pretty happy with that - being my first ever fun run. My Dad ran with me to help spur me on, so I owe a lot of my motivation on the day to him.