As a training and consultancy provider, we hear a lot about the relationship between clients and PR agencies. Here are a few ideas from Colin about what it might take to make that relationship work best.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Artificial Intelligence is simply a good vs bad battle between synthetic content created by machines and work you do yourself. Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude AI and Gemini have a lot to offer when they’re used to provide feedback on your work, analysis and additional perspectives. I recently wrote a blog criticising organisations that preach till the cows come home about their corporate ‘values’ but don’t always live them. I Read more…
At Comsteria, we know video is one of the most effective ways to share your message. When you work with us on long-term projects, we get to know your organisation inside out. This means we can create videos that truly connect with your audience and help you communicate complex ideas in an easy-to-understand way. For communications teams in charities, trusts, and businesses, keeping up with regular video content can be tough. It’s even harder when Read more…
We produce a lot of podcasts at Comsteria. Many of them feature academics and other experts who’ve been invited on to talk about their work. Our clients often like to begin each podcast with an introduction for each guest. The guest will either lean into the mic and verbally introduce themselves, or, they’ll provide text in advance and the presenter will say it for them, (think Fiona Bruce on BBC Question Time). It’s the same Read more…
Clients enjoy working with Comsteria on video production projects because we’re able to offer many aspects of the creative process without having to outsource. This allows us to keep prices low. One particular area of interest is voiceovers. We have our own VoiceOver studio and our Managing Director Colin Kelly is a highly experienced professional VoiceOver, having spent many years working in radio and television broadcasting. Over the years, all sorts of organisations have used Read more…
At Comsteria, we deliver media training to build you up, not trip you up. Somewhere along the line, it seems media training, and perhaps presentation skills training as well, have acquired this reputation as being a rather painful experience. We know some of our competitors favour an old fashioned approach and we hear phrases such as ‘knock you down and build you back up again’. We think there’s another way. It’s quite possible to build Read more…
Powerful Communication is about much more than press releases you issue, what you do on socials and how you come across in television interviews. It’s everything. From your pricing structure, to the greeting I get from your receptionist when I arrive for a meeting and the ‘404 error’ page when I click a dead link on your website. I see many organisations going to great lengths to make their recruitment processes accessible and engaging only Read more…
Tim Davie, BBC Director General and Team GB equestrian star Charlotte Dujardin have both issued apologies this week. Both lack specific reference of the issue they’re apologising for. As a result, they’re continuing to receive criticism and risk the issue growing and causing them more damage over the long term. Comsteria’s founder and crisis communications specialist Colin Kelly has advice on what they should have done differently, and what you can learn. Watch the video Read more…
We’ve become aware recently of a quite concerning double standard across Meta owned properties, specifically Instagram, with users facing restrictions (sometimes called ‘shadow banning) on their accounts for sharing what the platform considers to be ‘sexually explicit or erotic’ content. There’s never any clear definition of what is actually defined as ‘sexually explicit or erotic’. Many of us will have quite clear definitions in our heads but in practice it seems a lot of innocent Read more…
Comsteria’s Managing Director Colin Kelly shares the full story of how Comsteria came to be, what we do, who we work with and why we’ve got the edge over our competitors. Since 2012 we’ve been delivering more than 200 corporate communication training sessions to clients throughout Scotland and beyond each year. From media training to smartphone video production, crisis comms and presentation skills – we’re Scotland’s Powerful Communication champion, and we’re ready to work with Read more…