One of the talking points last week in the papers, apart from of course the sudden death of Michael Jackson, was the programme Famous, Rich and Homeless. Two hours of primetime BBC airtime was taken up by this reality-style programme focusing on homelessness in London.

In the programme five celebrities swapped their lavish lifestyles to spend ten days living as homeless people on the streets of London. The five included comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli; former tennis player Annabel Croft; ex-newspaper editor Rosie Boycott; Winston Churchill's great nephew the Marquis of Blandford, and Coronation Street actor Bruce Jones.

I’m not going to give too much away but there were some extremely interesting elements including the partnering of the celebrities with people who were currently homeless. The Marquis of Blandford didn’t last long on the streets checking into a hotel on the first night. But I do urge you to watch the programme to see how the celebrities faired.

You can watch it on BBC Iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ this week or download the programmes which gives you an extra 30 days to watch them. The programme reached 4.9 million viewers with a 23% audience share. A solid audience but do you think programmes like this will change perceptions about homelessness? I look forward to reading your comments.

Jude Habib, Director, sounddelivery, www.sounddelivery.org.uk

For many years those of us who work with, for or as fundraisers have mumbled on about donor choice, while comms have added the ubiquitous "we would like to contact you" opt in tick box and forgotten about it.

Now with the diversity of new media, and the newer sibling social media, our supporters are finally pushing us into putting our stories where they are, rather than the historical expectation that they will come to us. With the MySpace/Facebook/Bebo/linked-in networks, flickr and YouTube, twitter as well as blogs, RSS, web, email and SMS we all need a presence in a wide diversity of online spaces.

It is no longer enough to have a website and expect supporters to come - we need to proactively pull our audiences to the site with content that has a value to them. We must also pitch our features and core values in the wider network as that is where our new supporters are now living.

The challenge of course is both to be in all the right places so supporters can join us and to create enough content to keep it fresh and interesting. For smaller charities with a non-existent web team and over-busy Marketing and Comms staff the challenge is increased.

The best option is to design a marketing strategy for each channel, as we have learnt to do for direct marketing, phone, billboards and other offline channels. As we learn about the audience of each network we will learn to tailor the stories for that channel by the normal socio-demographic profiles.

Until we have a history to learn from we can still make educated guesses about the age and type of users by looking at the content of the most popular areas of the various sites. Just by knowing Bebo has a very young play profile while Linked-in has a professional middle aged user group we can start to apply the lessons we have learnt offline to our online supporters.

Alternatively we can produce a small number of stories and put them in all of the online spaces, adding them to our sites or blogs, offering an RSS feed and sending out both bulk emails and Facebook style updates to everyone who has joined our groups.

The later allows a smaller charity with limited resources to repurpose each piece of content simply by creating a precis to use in the shorter mediums. The downside is that people who have signed up to multiple channels, such as an email newsletter and a Facebook group, may get the story twice. Some of them might even opt out of one or other channel.

But then isnt that the whole point of choice - allowing people to chose which medium they want to engage with.

Sue Fidler, Sue Fidler Ltd

As we're all painfully aware, charities are facing tough challenges in the current climate, juggling increased demand for their services alongside reduced funding. Now, more than ever, many are considering merging with others in their field to help stay afloat.

Last year the Charity Commission dealt with more than 1,500 merger issues, with 230 completed. There's a good chance that number will rise even higher in the near future. But anyone that's dipped their toe in the water, or gone the whole way, will tell you that the obvious benefits of merging - economies of scale, cost savings in back office support, improved infrastructure and shared expertise - must be weighed against the difficulties, including redundancies, supporter backlash and branding decisions, to name but a few.

Good communication is critical to the success of any merger, large or small. Whether you're about to enter into preliminary talks, have started concrete negotiations, or the merger is about to take place, you must have a clear idea about who will need to know what's happening, what their concerns may be, what you'll need to tell them, and when and how they'll need to be told. When two organisations enter into talks, word can always get out, so be ready from day one.

Although you'll be used to communicating with staff, purchasers, regulators, partners, funders and service users on a regular basis, a merger will throw up issues you'll probably never have considered. Resistance to change will most likely emerge at either individual or organisational levels. For instance, if staff get wind of the fact that merger talks are happening through the tangled office grapevine, they will be concerned about their jobs, possibly angry about not being told formally, and perhaps express negativity about the charity you are in talks with. Chances are, you'll be proposing a merger with someone that has for years been seen as a competitor, and that's a big change for people to accept.

Use communications to create the climate for change from the outset. Explain what's happening and outline why it will improve the situation of individuals and of the organisation. Reduce uncertainty by providing prompt, clear and honest information to all those that will need and want it. And consult and involve people to build confidence and secure buy-in. At the same time, however, remember that there is a balance to be struck - talks often fall through and you don't want to alert staff to every conversation. So careful judgments must be made.

Purchasers and partners will have very different concerns. Depending on how they view you already, they may be worried that a merger could dilute your expertise, or if you're a small organisation, that growth may come at the expense of hands-on, personal services. However, if you have difficult relationships or a mixed reputation, this may be an opportunity to turn a corner and address problems by highlighting the benefits a merger will bring. Some may not seem bothered either way, but it's important to keep them in the loop so they don't suddenly feel confused or neglected further down the line when names and brands may change and structures may alter. There are also legal, contractual implications involved in a merger which will need to be explored and discussed early on to avoid difficulties.

Branding is a key issue for charities considering, or in the midst of, a merger. Will one organisation be adopting the other's existing name and identity? Or will you form a new brand between you? The implications for this are far-reaching and need careful consideration - if you lose one or both existing brands, you may risk losing the positive perceptions and associations people have built with that brand. However, a fresh start can make it easier to communicate a merger as a meeting of equals, rather than a partnership appearing as an acquisition or takeover. A thorough brand audit of both organisations is required to establish the pros and cons of each option, in order to allow you to make the best decision for both the short and longer-term.

With all that out of the way, and the merger signed, sealed and delivered, it would be understandable to want to put your feet up for a bit! But as we all know, the world doesn't work like that. As a new entity, your audiences will be scrutinising you more closely than usual, ready to pounce on any difficulties, ready to blame the merger for any reduction in service levels, and ready to dispute whether you are delivering all the things you said the merger would bring. A good reputation management plan for the months following merger is essential, as well as a thorough investigation of any potential 'skeletons' in the closet of those you are merging with, which may pose reputational threats.

Of course, it's also essential to plan out regular, positive and proactive communication with all key audiences from the merger date onwards, to update them on the achievements and further development of the organisation, to keep a firm hold on the agenda and maintain the momentum established by the merger announcement.

For more information and advice on internal and external merger communications, please contact Kirsty Kitchen at Amazon PR on 020 7700 6952 or email Kirsty@amazonpr.co.uk

Apparently the word "cancer" was the third most searched for term on Google News, after "Paris Hilton" and "Orlando Bloom", in 2006. With all the information about cancer out there, there was, and still is, a need for more. This prompted Cancer Research UK to set up a blog, written by their scientists, which was launched in May 2008. One year on, Henry Scowcroft, CRUK's Online Manager, spoke at a CharityComms seminar, updating us on the progress of CRUK's Science Update blog.

As a leading voice in the fight against cancer, Scowcroft explained the obligation CRUK felt to giving the public up-to-date and reliable information. If people are using the internet as a main source of information about the disease, there is always the danger of the myths and unqualified facts about cancer being believed. By setting up a blog, CRUK had an informal yet trustworthy vehicle to distribute the facts people were searching for. They also had a way to provide topical information quickly and a way to influence the wider narrative about cancer.

Setting up this blog was no easy task, as Scowcroft pointed out that with around 700 views per day, the content needs to be updated regularly. Three people contribute posts to the blog, which are edited by all three authors and then signed off by the CRUK press office. This amounts to around 2-3 posts per week and Scowcroft admitted that managing it takes up quite a lot of his time. A possible downside to the blog, which was put to Scowcroft from a member of the audience, is that the internet public are able to post comments saying almost whatever they like. The response to this was that, yes, they can, but with a faith in the sensibilities of the blog's audience and the watchful eye of a moderator, it's just another one of those things that are part of an online community.

One year on and the Science Update blog now has: over 165,000 views, over 200 posts and over 600 comments. The wider organisation has also been able to use the blog: Press Officers - to brief journalists and Supporter Services - to answer enquiries. The blog also won an AMRC Science Communication Award.

If you would like to see an example of a fantastically successful blog visit: http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/

Suzi Gammon, nfpSynergy Intern, Emma Wickenden, CharityComms Coordinator

When I was briefed that Bear Grylls was going to be the Scout Association's new Chief Scout I knew we were in for a fair few long days and the expectations for coverage would be high.

While I was excited and knew we could deliver, one thing concerned me. I had been told that on the day the announcement was to be made (Monday 18th May) I knew we only had six hours available from Bear to cover off all the media work that needed to be done. The question for the team was how to stretch the resource to generate as much coverage as possible.

On the day of the announcement I knew we wanted to target the following channels with our messages:

-National newspapers
-National Radio
-National TV
-Regional TV
-Regional Radio
-Local papers

The question was how to use all these channels with only six hours of spokesperson time. Our solution was some detailed planning and thinking a bit differently about the images and B role and adding in some extra spokespeople.

A few weeks before the announcement we managed to get some time from Bear for a media materials day. We also secured 90 mins of his time the day before the announcement went public. We held a media materials day at a Scout Activity centre near Bear's home. For four hours we captured stills and video of Bear in a whole load of situations talking to different young people from around the UK. We ended up with the following resources using our in house photography team and our video contractors at Fluidhd.com:

-A generic B role of Bear talking about being the new Chief and doing a range of adventurous activities
-18 pieces of B role with Bear answering questions from young people from every UK TV region
-Stills of Bear doing activities
-Stills of Bear with young people from across the UK

The day before the launch day we offered key interviews to:

-Reuters
-PA
-The BBC (news and Newsround)
-The Independent
-The Sun

This selected list gave us reach across the major and local news outlets

On the day we used our time to offer live interviews (and b role) to:

-Sky News
-BBC Breakfast
-BBCR4
-BBCR5
-An hour of BBC GNS
-BBC R1
-BBC R2
-BBC World

Did our Strategy work? The planning and use of Scouts from across the UK at the material day cost us time and money but gave us great local and Regional story lines. We made sure all the young people who met Bear, were available for local interviews in the days following the announcement. The results were stunning.

Over 95% of coverage conveyed our recruitment message and the volume was better than expected.

We achieved:

-23 pieces of network TV coverage
-9 pieces of regional TV coverage
-6 pieces of network radio coverage
-49 pieces of regional radio coverage
-12 pieces of national print coverage
-Over 60 pieces of regional and local print coverage (and still going up)
-Over 50 pieces of Online coverage (mainly with a national focus)

Some of my favourites are listed below. They made the list because they are spot on for messaging or are in channels we don't normally have the capacity to interest in our activities. The vast majority use our images and video:

www.hellomagazine.com
www.independent.co.uk
news.sky.com
news.bbc.co.uk
news.bbc.co.uk
www.expressandstar.com
www.gazette-news.co.uk
www.getbracknell.co.uk

I am taking this week off for a good sleep and will take some time working out which of the opportunities we take up for the future. This Morning or Richard and Judy, Mail on Sunday or Observer...decisions decisions....

Simon Carter, Assistant Director Marketing and Communications, The Scout Association.