Introducing… Tom Southgate

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Hi, my name’s Tom Southgate. I graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in Political Studies in 2008. I chose Politics because I  didn’t know what I wanted to do when I  graduated, but hoped I’d find something I liked while I was there. The thought of studying a subject where there are no right or wrong answers, only opinions to be supported and ideas to be debated also appealed.

This plan worked well, and following the suggestion of a friend, I decided that PR was for me. Over the course of my second year, I convinced said friend that turning him into ‘Community Man,’ making him wear yellow tights and brown underpants would be an extremely vital part of his campaign to be elected The Leeds University Union’s Community Secretary.

After a fruitless year of applying for graduate PR jobs, I realised that to get onto the ladder, work experience is sorely needed.  While I was applying for work experience and waiting nervously for my degree result, I filled my summer with cricket, cider and camping. I was eventually lucky enough to find some work experience two award winning PR Agencies in London; Parker, Wayne and Kent and Tonic Life Communications. In my time there, I attended events that ranged from the Global-Mix Streaming Media Conference, to the launch of 1001 Inventions at the Houses of Parliament. After a month in London, I came back to Manchester and found a placement at Wolfstar.

When I’m not looking for work or work experience, I can be found doing everything from listening to the latest Fabric podcast when I’m out for a run, beating my friends on Pro Evolution Soccer as my beloved Manchester City, trying in vain to win my local pub quiz or curled up in front of the fire with a good book, pipe and slippers not included.

Wolfstar wins outstanding small consultancy of the year

Last night, the Wolfstar team spent the evening at the Queens Hotel in Leeds. We went out on mass to the CIPR’s Pride Awards as we were short listed for the Outstanding Small Consultancy of the Year. I am delighted to say we managed to win and I am extremely proud of all of the team as their hard work is now really starting to pay off.

Wolfstar has only been going for around 18 months now and we have managed to grow from three people to more than nine (we were less than five when we wrote the submission) – so it looks like we may have to go for the larger version of this award next year.

The Social Media Bottleneck

‘What does this mean’ I hear you cry? Well, the social media bottleneck is a situation that we’re currently in.

Social media is a relatively new field, maybe not for the early-adopters but for most people it’s a new strand to public relations. This is especially true for clients.

The social media bottleneck represents a group of early-adopters forming social media divisions or companies and then all vying for the small pool of clients who are quick to adapt and understand the benefits of social media. We face a situation where only two or three divisions/companies actually have exciting clients – the rest of the social media sphere have to scrap around for smaller, less exciting clients.

This could have one of two effects;

The two or three original break-through social media companies/divisions retain the majority of high calibre clients because they have the case studies and experience of working on social media projects with high-level clients leaving the remaining divisions/companies to either close or only retain small clients. This would (potentially) create a dualistic environment in which the few divisions/companies were able to charge unreasonable prices and offer a relatively pedestrian service. This would hinder the development of social media, who needs to advance a medium if you’re already making a lot of money from it?

OR

As social media develops and the original clients become seen as trailblazers, then less experimental clients become more willing to take their chances with social media divisions/companies therefore leveling the field and spreading the big clients more thinly over a wide range of divisions/companies. Thus ceasing the bottleneck and increasing the need for competitive advantage in social media companies, ensuring the client always receives the highest level of service for the best price. This outcome represents the ‘age of community’ and would help develop social media beyond it’s current capabilities.

Personally I believe (and hope) that the bottleneck eases and social media begins to represent what its ideology is based upon – community. It’s the only way in which we can truly progress and help clients to integrate themselves into social media – thus encouraging less-forthcoming clients to take ‘the risk’.

The team continues to grow at Wolfstar

Well after another busy week at Wolfstar we decided it was time to add another staff member to our ever increasing team.

I am delighted to welcome Jed Hallam, who joins us on an initial two-month temporary basis. Jed and I have spoken with each other on various social media platforms many times before but the clincher for employing him was when he created a new Facebook group called ‘Ten reasons for Wolfstar and Jed Hallam’.

It was the final point for me that really caught my attention. In his own words his final reason was this: “I very nearly hired a Barbershop Quartet to sing these reasons to the Wolfstar Team at head office… Seriously.”

To be honest I had several visions of these guys walking into the office and singing (to the tune of Mr Sandman): “Mr Bruce give me a job!”

I thought it was a brave and bold move and it did make me laugh. Welcome to the action Jed!

Jed joins our other recruit Natalie Smith, who has been working for us on a full time basis during the entire summer. Natalie is still studying public relations at university, so she is only working for us on a part-time basis now but she has been a bit of a revelation in our office. In fact, I think Stuart Bruce said it best when he described her as: “the best student we have ever had”.

I can also reveal that there will be another two staff appointments very soon.

Cross Posted on: Norton’s Notes

Wolfstar Shortlisted for CIPR award

Title says it all really… We’ve been shortlisted in the Outstanding Small ConsultancyAgency category for our regional CIPR PRide awards. I can’t claim much of the credit as I’ve only been here two weeks. Still I’m more than happy with my 1/26th.

UPDATE: You can view the full shortlists for all categories on the CIPR PRide Awards 2008 website.