Some time back, we announced the ‘Directory of PR agencies and PR freelancers in India’ project here at India PR Blog, and now we are ready to provide the initial listings of the agencies from Mumbai and Delhi. We thank all those who have taken the time out to send in their information. This is a work in progress and we plan to add all Indian States and many more details of agencies and freelancers soon. So here we go:

Index of the India PR agencies and PR freelancers directory page.

Maharashtra PR agencies and freelancers page.

Delhi PR agencies and freelancers page.

In order to make this project successful, we hope that those who haven’t yet send in their details do so asap. Guidelines for submission are here.

About this directory:

The directory is an endeavor to showcase the diverse talent and local know how of the various PR professionals across the country. As the India PR blog is becoming a comprehensive resource for not only PR professionals and agencies but also for corporations and organisations seeking professional information on their PR and communications requirements, this directory will serve as a ready online guide available to them free and 24/7.

Last week, we announced a contest to our readers and now we are ready to announce the first winner. The contest is simple. Every week, all those who leave a comment on this blog on any of the posts will have their names thrown into a hat, and two winners will get a copy of Ajay Jain’s (my) new book, Let’s Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work. (Read about it here)

So this week’s winner is clap clap, Himanshu Kapadia. Congrats Himanshu. Please email your address to editor at indiaprblog.com and we will make sure the book reaches you real fast.

Actually this week, it was a tie between Himanshu and Shashank Jaitely, but since Shashank has received a copy already, we thought he won’t mind giving away his share of the prize as well to Himanshu.

So keep the comments coming. Let’s see who is the next winner.

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This is a group project - A Google map highlighting the PR agencies in Delhi and NCR region. We are also coming up with PR maps of Mumbai and other cities soon.

If you wish to have a certain agency added in the list, please contact any of the India PR Blog authors.

Better late than never. So that’s the motto we are following and introducing the people who have been behind this blog. As we mentioned earlier, India PR Blog is written by PR and media professionals across organisations brining a wide variety of experiences, insights, and views on current trends and developments in the PR industry and practice.

Read about the India PR blog authors here. - India PR Blog Authors

Your comments and suggestions o this blog are always welcomed.

Also while we are discussing this blog, a quick reminder about the initiative that we are taking up currently - to develop a directory of PR agencies and PR freelancers across India. When this is in place, this is going to be a good resource for all PR agencies looking out for partners and employees, and for all those seeking PR services. You can read more about the initiative and information on how to include your agency/yourself in the directory here- PR directory.

Cheers.

Dear PR colleagues, India PR Blog is developing a directory of PR agencies and PR freelancers in India. This directory will consist of all big, medium size, and small agencies across the various States, cities, and small towns in India.

The directory will be available online at this site. The agencies will be categorised according to their locations.

The directory is an endeavor to showcase the diverse talent and local know how of the various PR professionals across the country. As the India PR blog is becoming a comprehensive resource for not only PR professionals and agencies but also for corporations and organisations seeking professional information on their PR and communications requirements, this directory will serve as a ready online guide available to them free and 24/7.

So if you are a PR agency owner or a PR freelancers in India, please send us your details in the format below to editor@indiaprblog.com and we ensure your inclusion into this upcoming directory.

Name of PR Agency/ professional:

Contact Person (In case of PR agency) :

Full Contact Address:

Phone (with STD code):

Email:

Website (if any):

Specialisations: (For example event management, media relations, press releases, organising media interactions, press conferences, etc.)

Experience: (Please provide a brief paragraph of your experience, clients you have worked for, events you have handled)

Additional information: You can include anything you want to include about yourself/ agency here. This can be number of employees you have, profiles of key team members, awards won, etc. etc.

It might be interesting to see what our fellow PR professionals are doing at a particular time, or during the day. Somebody’s busy in a press conference and another is busy in a pitch meeting. Here’s a little experiment with Twitter that might throw up interesting observations. Follow the India PR blog page at Twitter. Your updates are displayed on this blog’s sidebar.

Nothing new. But when two dozen PR professionals send their updates, we might smile a little bit. Take pity on each other, or say a little congratulations to one another. Perhaps build a little community among ourselves. What say?

Hello Readers! Are you people there? What’s your feedback on the India PR Blog? If you have reading our writings for some time now, your feedback will be valuable to us.

So instead of brainstorming among ourselves, we thought we might have an open floor with the professionals in the Indian PR industry i.e. you and plus all other readers as well.

Do you like the topics we cover? What topics would you like us to cover? Do you like the style of writing? The feedback can be on everything - positive or negative.

We would appreciate if you leave your comments on the blog itself (on this post using the comment form below), in the spirit of blogging, instead of going the old email way. That way we can take discussions forward collaboratively.

So if you like/ dislike India PR Blog and (do not) appreciate the writings that have been coming to you, do drop in a note. That way one thing will be clear at least, someone is out there reading this blog

Should we have a prize for the best feedback? Maybe we should. An all-India media list? An all-India celebrity list? A list of journalist profiles? An ebook of PR ideas for any client from any industry? Nah …Just kidding. We will announce the prize on the comments or do a follow-up to this post. What do you say?

Well, keeping my part of promise to come back to you with my reflections of ‘Agar - Magar‘. The moment I saw the play it reminded me of a question asked to me by Vikas almost a month ago. How many times have you landed in a situation like Peehu, where you are forced to choose something which you never wanted? How many times your leader (Boss, Chief, Sir - whatever adj. you may be using) has requested (ordered) to do something which you always (’never’) wanted?

So, what is the issue? Was the teacher right? or was Peehu right? I think they both were right in their own perspective. At one hand, the teacher was following established traditions and rules and on the other hand Peehu (in his second avataar) was challenging the teacher to be with him breaking all rules & traditions. Imagine, you are in a similar situation in a corporate life. What would you choose? Conventional wisdom of choosing what is there in the organisation’s rule-book or unconventional courage to stand by with your team? I am not here to show you a path or give you any solution to this eternal debate. I am here to help you devise your new ’set’ of resolutions based on ‘Agar - Magar’ to create a future ready organization. My views may differ from many of our readers - so why don’t you counter it and we will discuss and debate.

My suggested resolutions for 2008:

Love your work: Enjoyment is the key to success. One of the best known secrets of any successful person is that he or she loves what he/she does and enjoy every moment of it. Even if you do not like your organization, your boss or your teammates but if you love your work, your life would be much easier and less complicated.

Break the Rules: Breaking rules isn’t easy but it can be very rewarding, especially when you are willing to break the rules to achieve larger interest of your organization or your team. Find opportunities to break the rules. Write new rules and shift goalposts every now and then, so you get more opportunities to break the rules and you can create ‘rule free’ organisation.

Learn something new everyday: Read a poem, watch a movie or simply learn how to sign in ten different ways. Learn a new word (I learnt Pollyannaism today, which many of our PR veterans believes in). You will become a complete person. You will be able to use your right brain and become more creative.

Maintain work-life Balance: Here comes the most difficult part. At least, one can try. After all, life also need a reason to live.

Change is good: Accept the change. Create the change. Love the change and yes, begin with yourself.

Help someone to grow: The satisfaction would be immense. Help your colleague to learn how to make powerful presentations, help her to learn the art of media relations, let your office boy learn to do more than cutting-pasting job. Help your boss to achieve his next promotion. Help your organization to become number one. Help your client to get more business. This world will automatically become a beautiful place.

Learn to be closer to ground: The most important decision taken in a boardroom will be known to you before it becomes memo, if you know the name of your canteen boy or sweeper. Progress is good and you need to aim for the corner office but it is better to be known as Munnabhai and not as Dr. Asthana.

And Finally…

Go out and vote: or else, you will have leaders you don’t want to be led by.

Have a great 2008.

We from India PR Blog wish all our readers a very happy 2008! I am taking a break this week from a series of Public Affairs posts we are posting. We will get back to the serious business from next week.

Well, do not go by the heading of this post. I am not going to bore you with usual resolutions, which you might have read in almost every newspaper or magazine in the country. I am going to talk about a children’s play I saw with my little tiger. The play was unique. It was adopted by Gulzar from some Japanese story. Agar - Magar was the name (if translated crudely it is ‘Either - Or’!?). It had two endings for the same story.

The story revolved around a teacher and his pupil named ‘Peehu’. Peehu’s mother was suffering from some unknown sickness which is killing people across the village. Teacher wants to go across the snowy mountain range and bring back medicine from a doctor which could cure the illness. Peehu decides to accompany his teacher in order to save her mother and other villagers. Peehu’s journey begins with teacher and two other pupils.

Agar:

The mountains were cold and dark. Peehu couldn’t bear the weather and at one point of time was unable to move an inch. Teacher asked him for his wish - whether he wants to stay back and let others go (it was almost an order rather than a request). Peehu accepts teacher’s advice (order) and decides to stay back. Considering the circumstances, Peehu requests teacher and his friends to throw him in a valley so he can die immediately without much pain and suffering. Teacher insisted that his last wish need to be fulfilled. Peehu jumped in to the valley with help from his friends!

Magar:

The mountains were cold and dark. Peehu couldn’t bear the weather and at one point of time was unable to move an inch. Teacher asked him for his wish - whether he wants to stay back and let others go (it was almost an order rather than a request). Peehu rejected teacher’s advice (order) and decide to continue the journey. Considering the circumstances, Peehu requests teacher and his friends to take him along on their shoulders so he can conquer the mountains and get medicine for his mother. Teacher gave him reasons and rules against his wish and insisted that he should stay back. Peehu argued saying that if teacher cant even show the way and do not allow him to complete his journey - he has no right to remain a teacher or a leader of the group!

Well, this story is here for a good reason. I will come back tomorrow with my version reasons and learning from this play, which I am sure will be applicable to all of us. After all, we are either ‘teacher’ or ‘Peehu’. Meanwhile, if you want to read between the lines and give me your version of reasons for this story being part of IPRB post, keep’em coming!

Once again, to all of us PR Wallahs wishing a very happy NEWs year!

Having a look at the top media relations tips from this blog in 2007:

1. Best media relations practices by PR professionals: What is the best way to issue a press release? What time of the day do we issue a press release and on which day of the week? How do PR professionals pitch for a story and what are the most-preferred options? Recently we conducted an online survey ‘Media Relations Best Practices’ on this blog and it was responded to by around thirty PR professionals and journalists who are readers of this blog. Here are the results.

2. 15 media relations tips by PR professionals and journalists: A list of select media relations tips from PR professionals and journalists who participated in the recent online survey ‘Media Relations Best Practices’ on this blog.

3. Pitching to media - 5 key factors to keep in mind: What does it take to sell a story to a journalist? These are some key points gathered from interactions with the scribes over the years.

4. Media pitching advice from the media: “Read the magazine, and send us a relevant idea, supported by key facts and no waffle” - an advice to all those pitching to the media, summed up Stuart Bruce of a pitch guideline from Real Business magazine. Works well for all PR folks across the globe I guess and in India too.

5. Getting the best out of press releases: We have heard about press release optimisation for the web, which in simple words means you write your press releases stuffed with keywords that search engines like Google and Yahoo are likely to pick up. This helps in having your press releases come out in relevant online searches and in turn helps boost your marketing and sales prospects from the web, besides the pure coverage factor.

6. Media relations tips for spokespersons: Here are some good media relations tips for company spokespersons.

7. Online PR - fast 5 Q&As with Sally Falkow: Adopting an online PR strategy is a must today if you are handling a technology client. That said it is not restricted to technology companies. There are dozens of lists of companies outside the technology vertical that have successfully benefited from well-planned online PR campaigns. these are some good tips by Sally Falkow, President of Expansion Plus Inc., a renowned Internet marketing and PR company, on how to successfully manage an online PR campaign.

8. Best time of the day to pitch a journalist: Often as PR professionals, we wonder when is the best time of the day to pick up the phone and pitch a story to a journalist. Getting a journalist at the right time increases our chances of getting a successful pitch. You might not want to catch a journalist when he/she is interviewing someone, writing a story, or running around in the field. But if you caught him/ her at a good time when he/she is in an open frame of mind and willing to listen to ideas, you can explain properly what you have in mind. This post explains how a day goes for journalists and what time of the day PR people should contact them to get maximum attention from them.

9. How to create more resourceful PR events: There is rarely an important event where you don’t have a media desk or room. This is usually manned by a well known PR agency, who may have also arranged for computers, Wi-Fi and refreshments for journalists. But are they being resourceful enough to meet the more critical needs of the media present? This is a list of tips for boosting your events.

10. Top 10 reasons why PR professionals should pitch to small blogs: There are big blogs and small blogs. PR professionals are seemingly on the lookout of top league blogs to pitch their client stories. What about the smaller ones - the B list blogs? Here are the top ten reasons why you might want to start considering pitching to a small blog.

11. Developing relationships in the World Wide Web: Some people fondly call it PR 2.0, in few western PR markets they have even moved to PR 3.0 and some call it Digital PR. What exactly is it? Does online PR exist? Can we develop relationships in the WWW? Well, let’s try and find out.