After a six months’ preparatory process, Stereobold was officially launched today. The company is 100 percent owned by Hungarians, employing only Hungarian developers and introduced itself with four applications to the Hungarian and international market. The first application to be developed was MAXDroid, collecting thematic news as well as information on weather and traffic, offered to media companies. Spin it!, the English Android game will shortly be available on the Android Market. TTS Forex helps stock brokers with real-time Forex-data. The most popular application among Hungarian mobile users is Kétkerék, the bicycle route planner, developed for Telenor in collaboration with FLOW PR. This application was downloaded from the Android Market by almost 1000 users within two weeks. Among the short-term plans are the development of an arcade-type and an RPG-game based on Augmented Reality – post-production processes are under way in both cases, and the applications are expected to be available on the market in September.

In order to gain a bigger share of the market, Stereobold has signed a strategic agreement with FLOW PR, one of Hungary’s leading communication agencies. According to the agreement Stereobold is responsible for the programming and developing tasks of the campaigns managed by the agency, primarily focusing on Facebook and web applications. Meanwhile FLOW PR is leading the introduction of the Stereobold brand on the international and Hungarian market, while other members of the FLOW Corporation help the start-up in acquiring investors and exploring new business opportunities.

FLOW PR decided to change its strategy and put a greater emphasis on social media besides traditional PR in 2009. Since then, the company has received 50 assignments. 90 percent of the projects are integrated campaigns, the clientele mainly comprises telecommunication, FMCG, entertainment technology companies and members of the commercial sector.

Social media projects:

• Android smartphone applications
• Facebook application development
• Management of Facebook pages and Twitter accounts
• Blog management
• Facebook ad campaigns
• Comprehensive social media strategies
• Implementation and consulting

First, FLOW PR created the opportunity for its co-workers to reduce the hurtfulness of sedentary work by offering them health massage and the possibility to exercise in order to enhance their endurance. Furthermore, the employees of the agency will have the chance to participate in a course where they will get acquainted with healthy diet, proper posture and stress relief. Finally, FLOW PR established a recreation room where a ping-pong table and a massage armchair are placed for the co-workers, and later a ping-ping contest will be organized to expand the opportunities of office exercises.

“Our results are due to the creativity, dynamism and the workload-managing ability of our employees,” said Krisztián Szabados, managing director of FLOW PR.  “We are aware that in order to boost efficiency further, we need to help our associates save their physical and mental health. This is the reason why we worked out our workplace healthcare program.”

The demand for social media campaigns and applications is rapidly growing. FlowPR has planned and managed numerous commercial campaigns for its clients in the past months and an increasing number of clients is asking for special applications to apply in these campaigns.

“We deliberately integrated social media services and app development into our agency’s pr portfolio since our approach is that social media and pr cannot be separated. We think that app development will be an integral part of agency work in the near future and we want to lead these changes in the local market”, says Krisztian Szabados, FlowPR’s CEO.

AppFlow division has full-time application developers and graphic designers among its employees, and will offer its services to FlowPR’s current clients. “Besides we are about to launch our first web applications under our own brand. We designed these apps for both the local and the global markets”, says Rita Madalina, FlowPR’s New Media Strategist.

CSRLabor is there for the professional and the wider public as well. We would like to encourage decision makers to spend more money on CSR, non-profit organizations to look rather for private and not for state support. We would like to show the public, how much work and money is invested into common good.

You can find our new blog here: www.csrlabor.hu

Researchers asked reporters whether they were familiar with social-media sites, how much they use them and how they view the future of social media in their field. The results indicate that Hungarian reporters know a lot about the main networking sites and read blogs, but are often unfamiliar with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video-, image- and document-sharing sites — even though these features would expedite the exchange of information and simplify their daily routines.
On a positive note, nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they thought journalists should be present on the social-media channels. We therefore expect traditional media outlets in Hungary will adapt to this new style of information-gathering and the broad choice it offers. However, this does not mean quality or ethical standards of reporting will change — the quality of the reporting and content will continue to be marketable.

The fact that our blog was appreciated by a jury with such highly regarded professionals like Ingrid Ihász, Ferenc Pécsi and Tamás Müller made us particularly happy.

We launched Trendlabor last September, less than a year ago. During this time, we have worked a lot on writing a vivid and relevant blog that covers topical questions relating to online and pr-trends.

We want to carry on with our work to contribute to the communications trade’s development and the professional discourse.

VELUX products have an extremely high reputation and are market leaders in all segments, but is seeking to strengthen its corporate brand in Hungary. That’s why the company decided to entrust its communications tasks to a Hungarian PR agency.

FLOW PR is well-experienced in corporate communication, helping build the local images of companies such as accounting firm Deloitte Zrt, Budapest Bank, Magyar Telekom, vehicle-parts maker Rába and food processor Globus.

Our name change represents an important milestone in our development. It was presaged by innovations such the addition of Hírlabor, Hungary’s first-ever social-media release service, and our strengthening presence in social media channels.

Other companies in our business group will also change their names in parallel. Our parent company, Capital Group, will become Flow Corporation; Green Capital will become GreenFlow, and GPS Capital will become Flow Public Affairs.

Also, Botond Sajti has been named Flow PR’s new deputy director and will work alongside Zita Hella Varga. Sajti has been part of our team since 2004. His many achievements include heading up the project that won the PR Solution of the Year award at the Kreatív PRizma Awards in 2009.

Today, the only way public relations specialists can support their media colleagues is through press releases from which reporters pick and choose the information they need. Hírlabor, which means “news lab” in Hungarian, adds a “new media” dimension to PR: the social-media release (SMR).

An SMR is a news release that also has social media functions. In addition to the traditional press releases, the Hírlabor site contains videos, quotes and links to related documents. All of these can be shared on social media sites as well.

Through SMR, a rich but simple surface, journalists can create high-quality publications in less time than before. We hope reporters will soon begin using this new format and appreciate how much easier their work will become.