David Parkin on making headlines and a storm in a teacup

IT is a strange experience writing about yourself.

You might think: ‘He does it every week, what is he gibbering on about?’

I’ve had to write a press release about my business and that was an odd experience.

I write this blog every week and while I do write about myself, it is usually about things I’ve done, people I’ve met or my opinion about stuff that is going on.

To have to move the focus away from that was a bit odd.

And then on top of writing the press release there is the nerve-wracking moment when you send it out to journalists and wonder whether they will decide to use it.

Given I was a journalist for so long, you could describe this as a gamekeeper turned poacher situation.

I thought I was always fair and balanced when dealing with submitted press releases.

I’m sure you’ll find a enraged PR person out there still smarting from me not running a press release about their client being awarded an ISO9001 certificate.

But now the boot is on the other foot and when you are submitting something that is about you and your business, it’s personal.

The good thing is it wasn’t all about me.

It was about our business – we’ve tweaked the name to COPA Group – expanding with the recruitment of new director Harriet Hughes-Payne who joins event director Liz Theakston and I.

She is a digital marketing expert who brings more than 25 years experience in senior marketing roles in both London and Leeds.

Prior to joining COPA Harriet spent eight years as a director and shareholder of Leeds-based digital marketing communications group twentysix where she was managing partner and helped it to double in size to 150 staff and £16m of revenues.

She took the opportunity to leave twentysix following a major investment by LDC.

COPA Group now offers digital marketing and branding alongside communications, content and events.

And that’s helped us win several new clients including a soon-to-be launched multi-million pound development in Ilkley and work on a digital strategy and consultation for El Fenn, the luxury hotel in Morocco co-owned by Vanessa Branson.

There is no great mystery how we’ve managed to recruit somebody as talented as Harriet to join us.

She is my partner.

Her arrival certainly means that COPA Group can now offer a new portfolio of services and can compete against firms which are significantly larger.

But then ever since I met Harriet people have been telling me I’m punching above my weight.

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THERE are plenty of people who will tell you about the benefits of social media.

The fact it can raise the profile of good causes, encourage significant charity donations and provide a global platform to highlight injustice.

But for all of that good there is the bad.

That it can be an outlet of hate, bile and anger.

This week’s news about Yorkshire Tea and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is a classic example.

Focusing on his first Budget, the Chancellor and Yorkshire MP tweeted a photograph of himself with the caption: “Quick Budget prep break making tea for the team. Nothing like a good Yorkshire brew.”

Cue a deluge of online abuse and calls for a boycott of Yorkshire Tea.

Purely because a politician some people don’t agree with chose to pose for a photo with a packet of tea bags.

It is at times like this that I want to shout: “Stop the world, I want to get off.”

Well, certainly the world of social media.

Well done to Yorkshire Tea, part of Betty’s & Taylors of Harrogate, which responded to the online abuse with some Yorkshire common sense and straight talking.

Despite pointing out that it had nothing to do with the Chancellor’s tweet, it didn’t stop a weekend of growing online anger and insults.

And so on Monday the curator of Yorkshire Tea’s Twitter account posted a thread saying they had faced a “rough weekend” of angry comments, and calling for a degree of perspective and greater civility online.

“On Friday, the chancellor shared a photo of our tea. Politicians do that sometimes (Jeremy Corbyn did it in 2017),” it said. “We weren’t asked or involved – and we said so the same day. Lots of people got angry with us all the same.

“For some, our tea just being drunk by someone they don’t like means it’s forever tainted, and they’ve made sure we know it.”

The curator of the account said they had “spent the last three days answering furious accusations and boycott calls” while some people had tried to pull the brand into “a political mudfight”.

“It’s easier to be on the receiving end of this as a brand than as an individual,” the thread continued. “There’s more emotional distance and I’ve had a team to support me when it got a bit much. But for anyone about to vent their rage online, even to a company – please remember there’s a human on the other end of it, and try to be kind.”

Well said.

I’m sure the “storm in a teacup” headline has already been used but it seems particularly apt in this case.

What a barmy and pathetic situation.

At least some embraced it all with good humour.

The Chancellor later posted another photo enjoying a mug of “unbranded tea” and police confirmed that “shouting at tea” was not a crime.

It just goes to show that if some people want to get annoyed they’ll find any way to do it.

And the anonymity and unaccountability of social media gives them the opportunity to do it online at the top of their voice.

Anyway, I’m off for a cup of tea.

And I don’t mind who knows which brew I sup, because there was never this kerfuffle when I posed with a mug of Yorkshire Tea.

Have a great weekend.