OPEN

In the spirit of the Flickr hacks for PR I mentioned on Open the other day (PR needs invest in playtime), Stephen Davies of PR Blogger has produced eight tips for using group moblogging in PR (moblogs are sites where anyone can send in pictures (and text, but the pictures bit is the most powerful for me) from their phone to a central website). Here’s my reading of his ideas:

1. Promoting an area for tourism or economic development? Get residents and business to join a moblog of pictures that promote it
2. Looking for NGO/charity volunteers? Get your existing volunteers to create a moblog of images showing the work they do. Much more inspiring than just text.
3. Promoting a gig or a film? Build buzz by getting cast and crew to contribute to a moblog.
4. Brand communications… get brand fans and advocates to participate in building a moblog of images about the brand they love.
5. Internal communications: this one is genius – build an internal moblog that people can send photos of everyday working life, major events, etc etc. Great, friendly way to build an audience for a internal blog or wiki, perhaps?
6. Moblog your media event…  I think you’d need to find a way to make this interesting, but it could definitely work.
7. Single issue campaign with a strong message… Stephen cites the "We are not afraid"  campaign after the 7th July bombings in London as an example of getting people to participate creatively in a collective statement of a powerful message.
8. Crisis communications… Stephen’s not sure of the use here, but he’s sure there is one.

Nice work, Stephen. You’ve got me thinking seriously about the potential of moblogs in PR campaigns.