MUSIC The President of Iran is swapping his traditional clothing for a baseball cap and track suit. In photos published on his website, Hassan Rouhani, is seen out hiking, something he apparently does a couple of times every week. Or since he was elected in June Rouhani has made an effort to distance himself in some ways. From his hard-line predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadina Jadi is engaged in a sort of campaign of public relations and much of that has been launched on his personal website. A Facebook page and Twitter account, all of it, in English. This photo was put on his Twitter page immediately after his phone call with the US President Barack Obama at the first time such contact had been made with an American leader in more than three decades. He regularly uses social media to congratulate Iranian sporting achievements, especially women's, his tweets have often targeted the issue of women's rights in September he tweeted, Iranian women are educated, capable, powerful. In this government, we're hoping to ensure equal opportunity. Sir Bruce is with us, he's a public relations consultant, a trainer speaker and author who has recently been to Iran for an international PR conference, joining us now live from Leeds. Do you think it was what you said and the other said of this conference that got the message through to President Rouhani that the times they are are changing? I think it was something that President Rouhani was already doing. If you look at what's been happening over the last few months, there's been an increasing emphasis on improving the social media. The biggest difference between the two countries is that the government is not going to be able to get the information from the government. The government is not going to be able to get the information from the government. The government is not going to be able to get the information from the government. The government is not going to be able to get the information from the government. Yes, yes. Yes, but I think the case with Putin, actually the case with Rouhani as well, is it would be much easier to poke fun at that if it wasn't genuine, but I think the fact that President Rouhani does genuinely go hiking, or so I understand. Putin is a kind of genuine man of action. I think that works a lot better than when political leaders say pretend to be fans of a particular sport, because that's what's the image they want to project. So it works unless it's authentic? So Stuart, how does it work? I mean, there's no way that an official photographer would have been there by chance. Somebody must have said, look, this is good. It'll make President Rouhani more popular to some people in his own country, perhaps more modern, in the outside world. How do you go about changing somebody so that they accept this as their role? Well, I think one of the most important things to do is you actually need to capture lots and lots of those moments. And I think perhaps one of the best examples of that is that kind of world-famous Twitter photograph that went around the world when President Obama was elected with a picture of him kind of embracing Michelle Obama. And that was a photograph that had been taken some time in the past, because they always had an official photographer on hand, capturing all those kind of private moments behind the scenes. And I think that's the way to do it, to actually have some sort of degree of transparency, not necessarily do the kind of the set up photo shoots. You know, if you've actually captured lots and lots of things that are genuine, you're going to find some much better images in there than if you actually attempt to just stage something. And Stuart, what are the biggest dangers? What's your message to President Rouhani now if he's listening? I think the biggest danger is a lack of authenticity. I think one of the problems with his account at the moment is we don't know whether he's actually doing it. I presume he isn't. But if you contrast that with the way some other world leaders do it, where they perhaps, they're upfront about it being done by the communications team, and then occasionally they'll do a genuine piece of interaction themselves, and you'll see their initial being used at the end. So for example, President Obama's Twitter account is very rarely him, but occasionally you'll see ones with the BO at the end, so you know it's actually him. I think that's something I'd like to see President Rouhani doing. So it's just a final thought here, Stuart. When you were in Tehran and you were talking PR, there's a paradox here, isn't there? Because here we have a hugely conservative country sitting alongside something that is very much of the modern age. How do you think the message went down? I think eventually Iran does have to open up, and we have that kind of brief moment a couple of months ago and the Iranian people did have access to social media and to Twitter. I think it's going to be really important that if Iran's trying to project a different image to the outside world, then that's got to be the reality. It's got to start having some more reforms internally. Thank you. Thank you very much in D.D.A. Stay listening for just a moment, because we're going to be able to talk about the issues that are going to be in the future.