Russell was formerly head of the digital practice at Fleishman-Hillard in the UK, leading a team of specialists across social media, design and delivery. He provided senior counsel and oversaw digital campaigns for clients such as P&G, Saudi Aramco AOC, Huawei and Philips.

Based in LEWIS’ headquarters in London, Russell will be responsible for establishing and overseeing best practice and thought leadership in social media for all LEWIS Europe offices, as well as taking a lead counsel role on the agency’s key social media campaigns.

Russell regularly provides opinion on the latest digital trends to Third Sector and Cue Entertainment magazines, and has previously contributed to PR Week, Times Higher Education Supplement and Health Service Journal. He is a Volunteer Champion for Media Trust, the UK’s leading communications charity and a former special advisor to British Interactive Media Association. Russell is also a judge for Third Sector awards and British Video Association awards. At LEWIS, Russell will continue to speak regularly at conferences and seminars to senior stakeholders, using his experience speaking for high profile events such as the European Social Media Summit, NHS Communicators Conference, CIPR, Media Trust, Health Service Journal, Higher Education body ‘CASE’ conference and along with many others.

‘The Changing Face of Communications’ shows how the techniques are applied to each of these areas:

1. Communicating in real-time
2. Incorporating SEO into PR
3. Evaluating campaigns
4. Deploying video
5. Word-of-mouth marketing
6. Corporate blogging
7. Event-based community management
8. Content creation
9. Crisis management
10. Optimizing web sites for conversions
11. Internal case building
12. Online influencer communications

The Changing Face of Communications is authored by LEWIS practitioners from 25 offices around the world. Each article includes tips to help communicators in their daily roles.

Each article in the book is also a bite-sized summary of one of the company’s digital communications training modules. Every staff member undergoes a combination of online and in-person training to enable them to deliver fully integrated digital campaigns.

The book is available here.

Best Use of SEO in a Campaign (Neustar)

•     LEWIS PR represents Neustar’s UltraDNS and Webmetrics portfolios (formally known as Internet Infrastructure Services). Neustar turned to LEWIS to help activate the web for this product set. LEWIS PR brought together a blended approach of social media and SEO tactics in order to garner top-notch results for the program.

Best Use of Digital in a B2B Technology Campaign (Unisys)

•     With many B2B technology providers offering similar technology solutions and using similar marketing messages to external audiences, LEWIS created a campaign to help Unisys rise above the noise, with a unique approach to telling its story, including infographics and video content. The focus of the campaign was on the annual Unisys Security Index (USI) and the Consumerization of IT (CoIT) research.

The Bulldog Awards are unique, in that they are judged by working journalists and bloggers.

The global communications agency had plenty to be proud of as industry recognition was received from a panel of 34 judges, who named LEWIS as worthy winners during an online voting session and a two-day jury meeting.

The awards were presented in the categories: ‘Social Media’ for an awareness campaign with SIRE and ‘Issues and Reputation Management’, for a third-consecutive year, with client Immobiliare.it.

Perhaps the most prestigious honour was given when the team was crowned with overall ‘Best Campaign’ for the SIRE: “I’m still here!” campaign, to raise awareness of the terminally ill. According to the jury an impressive campaign with a powerful combination of social media and traditional PR.

Placing second by only a small margin over England, is Australia, who performed consistently across a number of social media metrics. England performed solidly on Facebook with a fan base just shy of 300,000, supported by a Twitter following of just over 30,000.

The overall social media rankings measured how active each of the teams are in social media, in addition to the level of engagement with fans.  Scores were generated by looking at a number of metrics such as Facebook fans, Facebook discussions, Twitter followers, follow backs and tweet volume.  The top eight teams only were considered, with the rankings as follows:

1. New Zealand
2. Australia
3. England
4. Ireland
5. South Africa
6. Wales
7. Argentina
8. France

The strongest region for the group was Continental Europe, which represents 48% of revenues. Significant growth also came from the US where the agency has a third of its revenues. Revenue from digital services increased across all regions, with particular growth seen for the agency’s social media consulting, SEO and digital content production services.

In the last financial year, LEWIS announced its acquisition of PageOne PR (now LEWIS Pulse) in the US, adding extensive B2B social media capabilities to the group. It also completed its integration of Belgian agency, Leads United, which it acquired in 2009.

The company is independently owned. It plans to invest the majority of profit into future growth. LEWIS PR is now one of the largest global independent agencies according to The Holmes Report.

The services are the result of integration between LEWIS PR and LEWIS Pulse, formerly social media agency Page One PR, which LEWIS acquired in October 2010. Since then, the combined company has seen significant momentum in adoption of its social media services, including new contracts with Eloqua, Neustar, Polycom, SAP and VMware.

The four services all focus on achieving measurable business results from social media:

Social media for thought leadership – helps B2B organizations become a destination for expertise and information on a specific topic. By providing valuable content through social channels, brands can positively impact online visibility, credibility and lead generation.

Social media response – enables organizations to manage significant, time-specific issues that can impact their brand negatively – and leverage conversations that present positive opportunities. LEWIS’ global monitoring capabilities go beyond what is possible with automated tools, and its response process is based on years of experience in managing vocal communities, handling media crises and implementing rapid response campaigns.

Social media for events – based on LEWIS Pulse’s deep expertise in handling social media programs around customer conferences such as McAfee FOCUS, SAPPHIRE NOW and VMworld, this service helps ensure the best possible experience and value for event attendees.

Social media for product marketing – this service leverages LEWIS Pulse’s expertise in activating communities and influencers, and includes proven tactics to help drive awareness, and build momentum, for client products.

Each service is available in all 25 LEWIS and LEWIS Pulse offices across the US, Europe and Asia.

Contact LEWIS for more information, read more about LEWIS services or subscribe to our blog for regular tips on using social media to support your business goals.

She will also take on responsibility for the firm’s global marketing program, working in conjunction with European Vice President, Yvonne van Bokhoven and the global marketing teams.

Part of her responsibility will also be to input to the company’s talent management programs, including new training schemes and staff development initiatives.

Known as the LEWIS Employee Development Academy (LEDA), new graduates will be based at LEWIS’ London headquarters for the first three months of their LEDA training for an intensive introduction to the media relations, online community management, campaign development and client engagement. The trainees will then return to their ‘home’ markets for the second three months of instruction, where they will then learn about the local media landscape, social media environment and client base.

“London’s peerless media environment makes it the most appropriate city to run our training in,” said newly-appointed Programme Director at LEWIS PR, Suzy Ferguson. “By gathering together a mix of European graduates we will train a new generation of PR professionals to cultivate a more defined global mindset. In addition to learning about each other’s markets, trainees will be instructed by our teams of specialists, consisting of former journalists, digital experts and campaign practitioners. In return, we are looking for exceptional candidates who are driven to be the future both of LEWIS in Europe and the PR world.”

While LEWIS has always locally trained graduates in each of its 25 offices, the new LEDA will be the first time that training has been offered at a regional level. The first intake of graduates will include candidates from the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Netherlands, with plans to extend to further countries in the second intake, in 2012.

Graduates will need the equivalent of a 2:1 degree or a 3.5 – 4.0 GPA.

Recruitment will take place in September with a view to starting training by the end of the following month. Graduates with work experience in PR, social media or marketing from the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Netherlands who are interested in the LEDA should apply via LEWIS PR’s website.

For years, PR has been measured on the basis of coverage volume, tone and reach. More recently, the focus has switched to measuring engagement. But as adoption of web analytics has grown, and the need has emerged for meaningful metrics that demonstrate the business impact of PR and social media, it has become important for PR to be assessed in terms of conversions too. LSCORE wraps all these dimensions of measurement into a single application, even visualizing data from Google Analytics, URL shortening applications and popular monitoring services.

In addition to automated visualizations, LSCORE furnishes a framework for setting objectives across each channel, and within each category of measurement. A built-in planning module helps internal teams and client contacts set jointly agreed and realistic goals. It includes a range of templates to accommodate a wide variety of KPI categories, from coverage level goals, to share of voice measures, to sentiment objectives.