There are a lot of things going on at a PR agency. In the days of old (back when we actually put a physical press release in an envelope) there was the creative team and the account management team. That model has clearly been outdated for some time. Now, all account members need to have both skills. Of course they need the skills to work with clients, build strategy, write, interact and influence the media, and show results. So far this in not rocket science.
Then the economy changed, and there were less people doing more. Lean was mean and that meant profitability which lead to job security. Suddenly we were dealing with multiple countries, in multiple languages and over different time zones. Soon technology was pulled to offer our knowledge workers better accessibility than the fixed line servers in our offices as these were superseded by other more efficient cloud solutions.
When it comes to managing PR across multiple teams - for a client or an agency - there really are not many solutions out there. At NettResults we live and bread cross-boarder PR and were constantly frustrated by the online tools available. We could find media databases and distribution/monitoring solutions and we could find project management solutions, but there was nothing that the PR industry could call their own.
If you can't find it, build it. So we did. We developed the Public Relations Control Center (PRCC) which is used across our organization, as well as with many clients and partner agencies that we work with. This was recently showcased on Intranets Today. To read that article - you can link here. And if you'd like to have a demonstration of our system, please call us today.
In January, we told you all about the search for a new definition of PR.
On Friday the results were announced by the PRSA and covered in the New York Times.
So here it is:
Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.
The last definition was written in 1982.
Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.
So at least this is an improvement. But is is good enough?
OK - so they managed to get a definition that is just under 140 characters...
My problem is with the last word - publics. I will admit that adding an apostrophe would considerably change this definition, so just to be sure I looked up what defines 'publics'.
According to Wikipedia, this is, "Publics are small groups of people who follow one or more particular issue very closely. They are well informed about the issue(s) and also have a very strong opinion on it/them. They tend to know more about politics than the average person, and, therefore, exert more influence, because these people care so deeply about their cause(s) that they donate much time and money."
Most dictionaries don't think this word exists except as the plural of pub.lic (Noun).
I think what the PRSA is hoping, is that the wider definition as on BusinessDictionary.com is applied: "Communities of people at large (whether or not organized as groups) that have a direct or indirect association with an organization: customers, employees, investors, media, students, etc"
Anyway, PR now has somewhere to hang its hat. What do you think?
There is good public relations and there’s bad.
Let’s face it, some organizations, people and agencies are good at it, and some are not.
But when you are in the thick of it, when you’re spending the money, how do you know?
Oh, that’s quite simple, you wait five months and then look at the coverage you achieved. Wait a minute, did someone in the back utter that they move quicker than that and they don’t want to wait five months? What, you actually want to know now if you are spending time and money wisely? OK, well in that case, there are six sure fire signs of good public relations.
1 – First up, you better have a strategy. A clear, concise strategy. Can you (or the person/agency in charge) define in half a page: - the target market that needs to be reached - the media used to reach it - the message that needs to be communicated - the desired action of the target market - the media tools that will be used to achieve that - and when they will be used?
If you can’t then you’re running your PR strategy in an ad-hoc manner, which is not going to give you the results you need. The number one tell-tail signs is inconsistency… in regards to when coverage is achieved, who it reaches or the messages it conveys.
2 – How are your relationships? It doesn’t matter how great your strategy is if your PR team doesn’t have the best media relationships to get it delivered. This is where larger teams have the advantage. I’ve yet to meet one person who gets on with everyone. So it stands to reason that if you have a one-person team or freelancer on your PR they can’t have relationships with all the core media. It takes a diverse team of people at various seniority and experience level to be able to hold all the core relationships.
This is doubly important if your target includes multiple social-economic targets or possibly more than one language. Look at the make up of the journalists and editors you are trying to reach and make sure your team are similar.
3 – Responsiveness and consistency rules. PR is not a tap you can just turn on or off as you feel. It’s more like a snowball pushed down a hill - once started it will keep on rolling and growing if you treat it right (and if you don’t treat it right it’s like putting a tree in front of the snowball). To keep that snowball rolling and growing you need to be ever responsive to the media (never leave a man hanging) and you need to ensure you fuel the media machine with consistent, newsworthy and relevant information.
Tell-tail signs - if your PR team can’t respond to you within a coupe of hours, then they are not responding to the media quickly either. And if you don’t have a constant funnel of news and ideas being worked on, then it’s akin to your snowball rolling over concrete.
4 – Reporting and feedback. At NettResults we make it simple for all our team members: for a successful client/agency relationship there are two things that drive success – media results need to be obtained and there needs to be constant reporting with the client. A campaign that has great results, but there is little client/agency interaction or lack of reporting, will fail.
Media relations is a constant feedback loop. Multiple minds need to plan it out and everyone needs to be watching what is working and what is successful. This is the only way that momentum can be gained and we can drive a higher return on investment.
5 – Business acumen. Look at it this way - there’s this funnel. At the bottom of the funnel is PR, above that is marketing and above that is ‘the business’. While I’ve had bosses that have said to me they can write a press release about anything, irrespective of whether they understand the subject, you can’t play in the PR space successfully unless you understand business.
Much as we would like to think that media and PR teams are the bees-knees – there is always a higher being that is driving the business. The PR team needs to be aware of this and have a true understanding and respect for when PR plans need to be modified due to a business requirement. Tell-tail signs – have a conversation with your PR team about your business, not the latest PR news, but about the actual business. Do they talk sense?
6 – Is there a level of trust? What this all comes down to is trust. A client needs to be able to trust that their team/agency is proactively working on their behalf. There has to be bilateral trust between the PR team/agency and the media.
More than most industries I have witnessed, trust is central to PR success. Like all professional service business, we’re talking about a professional’s time. How it’s being used and how efficient it is. We’re talking about abstract terms. We’re talking about things that people get emotional about. Wrap that all up and the lubricant that keeps the cogs turning is trust.
These six simple concepts will give you good insight into how successful your results will look in five months.
It’s always great to see when a sensible business gets their PR so right in a proactive manner.
For anyone that ever spent 5 minutes in a car in Southern California, they are (without doubt) bound to have heard the rather dodgy sounding radio commercial for 1-800-GET THIN and their revolutionary lap-band procedures that will have you dropping 125 lbs and whizzing around shopping malls in no time. Oh, and your insurance will cover it. But hurry – this offer won’t be around forever.
OK – so the commercial is really, really tacky and their jingle sounds no better when my 9 year old suddenly starts humming it. You listen to this advert and you know, instinctively, that something is wrong. Somehow you visualize yourself walking into a very dirty and smelly waiting room and being helped by personal that don’t look qualified to take your temperature – let alone open your stomach up.
California has some very large people, and when you live in a city that chooses to wear sweat-pants and do yoga on the beach, you know you got to look good. It therefore stands to reason that there is some very serious amount of business here. And as any savvy businessperson has probably already worked out, 1-800-GET-THIN is really only a marketing company – that in turn provides leads to independent clinics that in turn provide surgery using Allergan’s Lap-Band weight-loss device.
What do you do when you provide the devise that according to lawsuits is central to five Southern California patients whom have died since 2009 following Lap-Band surgeries at clinics affiliated with 1-800-GET-THIN? You do the right thing.
Allergan today announce that they will no longer sell its Lap-Band weight-loss device to companies affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN marketing company. In a business where everyone is chasing the dollar and making their next quarterly goals for financial pundits, this is the right thing to do. From a business perspective, while it’s never easy to turn down sales, in this instance the PR team is handling what could be a PR crisis very well.
Good luck to Allergan Inc – smart PR move.
Now hopfully my 9-year-old can stop humming that stupidly anoying jingle.
Can you really define something like the definition of PR through consensus?
Well at this point I would have defined consensious, but of course Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is blacked out today (good for them). Webster is my second go-to and they provided:
a : general agreement : unanimity <the consensus of their opinion, based on reports … from the border — John Hersey>b : the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned <the consensus was to go ahead>
Anyway, this is the long and seemingly very drawn out process the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) is going through as witnessed here.
The Candidate Definitions (love that definition in itself) are:
1 - Public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results.
Ummm... OK. what makes it management function? I can also think of plenty of unethical PR (aka Political PR) which much as I wouldn't want to be involved in it, should still be defined as PR.
2 - Public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics.
Well... I can think of plenty of times when PR does not set up a 'mutually' beneficial relationship. And can we really say that PR is always strategic?
3 - Public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.
As such... I'm not sure I can agree here either. I don't think the process is always between organizations and individuals - but maybe I am reading too much into that. And there is that word 'mutual' again.
Straight up - I do have an answer (and it's superb), but don't think for one moment I have the answer that everyone will agree with. But as Margaret Thatcher said:
consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.
Actually, the quote that is even more apt for this situation from old Mags is:
Consensus? Consensus is the negation of leadership!
So is the PRSA trying to keep everyone happy (and in the process we know that will piss everyone off), or can they come back from the abbys and lead?
Seth Godin blogged about it today. One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you're in the room... Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you're not.
The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.
And so it is with succssful public relations. We take the unusual step of saying to our clients (either during a pitch or after it is successful won) that frankly we don't care how many press releases we are asked to distribute. All too many agencies seem to want to calculate their retainer or projects based on the number of press releases. This doesn't make sense to us. So long as each and every press release is newsworthy and relevant we don't mind working on one a day.
Off course I've yet to meet a client that had that many newsworth releases... in fact back in 1999 I was speaking to a journalist who was compaining to me that Microsoft sent them a press release every two days. They actually didn't care that the releases were every two days (they were allready clearing 100+ emails from their email of usless pitches), but they did care that 99% were irrelivent to the title they wrote on. Of course it wasn't Micorsoft's fault - just the agency at the time that wanted to spam all journalists.
Successful PR campaigns and to add to that - campaigns with longevity - require a spokesperson that makes a difference - or to put it another way, one that will be missed if they are not commenting.
How is your spokesperson doing?
A media interview is a critical opportunity to convey key messages about your company to customers, key stakeholders and the public. To assure that the final printed, online or broadcast story is accurate and includes your messages, here are twelve guidelines for 2012:
1. Focus on one or two key messages. Reinforce these prepared messages and verbally flag them for the reporter throughout your interview so that they are sure to understand what is important to you. Don’t wait for a leading question to convey these messages – from the very start of the interview use whatever question you are asked to bridge to your messages.
2. Keep it simple. Keep the real audience in mind (you may be talking to a reporter, but your real audience is the reader/viewer). Unless you are being interviewed by a highly technical journal, simplify your messages. Think about telling a story to someone who is not an expert – your mother, a friend, or neighbor. If complex issues or definitions can be simplified, the reporter is likely to get it right and the intended audiences will understand your message.
3. Practice makes perfect. Practice to yourself, in front of a mirror, film yourself (your smart phone will do the trick) and then practice with a colleague or PR professional. Even the most seasoned interviewees can’t wing-it, so ensure you practice before every interview.
4. Tell a story. Prepare compelling quotes or anecdotes in advance. Journalists make stories come alive through good quotes, meaningful anecdotes and images that readers can picture and relate to.
5. Speak for the company at all times. It is never appropriate to give personal opinions, criticize others or make off-color remarks.
6. Never speak off-the-record. Regardless of the rapport that you have with a reporter -- or promises made by the reporter -- keep all of your comments on the record when in the presence of a reporter, producer or photographer.
7. Anticipate tough questions. Decide in advance how to handle them. Discuss difficult issues and questions with your communication consultant before the interview. The direct approach is usually better than being evasive. When you cannot comment or information is proprietary, just say so, but use the opportunity to bridge back to a key message
8. When in doubt, call back. If you are unsure how to answer a question, or need to check facts, get back to the reporter later. Don’t fake it or feel that you should know the answer. Regardless of the reporter’s deadline, take your time, swallow your pride and provide only accurate information. Some questions may be appropriate for someone else – or another company – and not for you to answer.
9. Proprietary information. You do not have to share or discuss personnel or business proprietary information. It is fine to say that you understand the reporter’s interest, but the information they are requesting is propriety or confidential. Once you have said that, immediately bridge to some other related information that you can discuss. This helps take the focus off the topic that is off limits.
10. Offer to help. Refer the reporter to other important sources of information or to experts, particularly organizations with whom you partner.
11. Final facts and fact checking. At the end of the interview give the reporter a business card and offer to check facts or quotes. Offer your mobile phone number. You should never ask to review a story, but it is
OK for you to offer to check facts over the phone.
12. Enjoy. You’re the expert, get your messages across and use even the most sensitive questions to bridge to something positive and enjoy the opportunity to shine a light on the good things your organization is doing.
Our friends at Cision have just released their 2011 Cision-Newhouse School Digital Influencers Survey. It has some interesting findings and you can read the full research here.
Now, much as we love research and its findings, we do have to identify that Cision's research is often heavily skewed to the bias of selling media lists and the Cision services. That said, we all benefit from understanding exactly how to use social media with the media.
The 2011 digital influencer survey shows that social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (with the impact of Google+ soon to be felt) continue to revolutionize how those who create digital content do their jobs: how often they post content (“file stories”) and how they identify stories and trends, cultivate and qualify sources, and share information.
But – perhaps even more importantly – it is apparent that social media has empowered anyone with a voice that resonates with a community to build influence and vie for the same attention and audience as traditional media.
These “other content creators” may not be connected to an established news organization or blog, but their “social capital” is so significant that they have a direct impact on consumers and other influencers.
Those who define themselves as journalists tend to have very different (and less positive) perceptions about the usefulness and accuracy of social media.
Yet all respondents agree that social media is a superior way to share stories, connect with communities, and make their voices heard.
Bottom line - what does this mean to PR agencies and organizations that use agencies? Well, PR agencies need to use social media tools to inform/converse with journalists and those writing materials that customers are reading. But they can't rely on them - social media needs to be integrated into journalist outreach.
...according to the tire manufacturer Pirelli. And so it is with public relations. Gone are the days when an organization can fully control their corporate message to the media.
In days gone by, it was normal for an organization’s employee handbook to strictly dictate that no employee could speak to the media without prior approval and spokesperson media training. No problem.
Then a few years ago social media popped up. According to a recent piece of research by Altimeter, companies average an overwhelming number of corporate owned accounts – about 178. That is a bunch of people from different departments and around the globe that are speaking on social media platforms, that the media are seeing. And that’s before we count the personal SM accounts of employees who happen to mention their job. So what’s to be done?
NettResults recommends three levels of corporate communication development:
1 - Relinquish a mindset of control - instead ‘enable’. In business school we were taught to foster message control and encourage all corporate representatives to stay on message. Yet today, as multiple business units from support, sales, HR and beyond participate in social technologies, communication is spread to the edges of the company – not just from the PR department. As a result, PR groups have changed their mindset to safely enabling business units to communicate, based on pre-set parameters they put in place through governance, coordination, and workflow.
2 - Roll out enterprise workflows - education programs at four levels. We’ve found that savvy corporations have detailed workflows, including sample language in which employees should respond. Beyond creating these workflows, they must be distributed throughout the enterprise through education programs, and drilled. We’ve found savvy corporations have up to four types of education programs spanning: Executive team, social media team, business stakeholder teams, and finally all associates. Even if the mandate is for rank and file employees to not respond in social on behalf of the company, reinforcing education is still required.
3 - Run mock crises. Lastly, we’ve found a closer relationship with media relations, social media and crisis communications. Savvy corporations are working with agency partners such as NettResults to setup mock crisis drills where they approach a week-long crises in a number of hours in private. Not only does this test the mettle of the organization it provides useful training so companies can respond faster, in a more coordinated approach. We have already witnessed health organizations receiving ‘social-crises-ready’ compliance notices and we expect compliance programs to spread into other industries.
Get ready – take control.
Every company has a organizational chart - a ladder of power, but how this structure functions during a crisis must be clarified with all the stakeholders in the company; particularly the communications department. A crisis can hit at any time, and the company needs to determine secondary command structures in case key decision-makers are unavailable at the time.
Not only is it important for those to know who need to spring to action (and how those people are contacted) - it is equally important that everyone else in the organization knows they can not speak on behalf of the company or to the press. Something that is best handled in a company employee handbook.
Organizations also need to decide which situations warrant which spokes person, and plan accordingly.
Most importantly, the spokes people need to be media trained in advance. Effective spokes people should receive professional media training and should be well versed on how to deal with the press. An organization's spokes person need not necessarily be the most senior staffers. For example, in some cases, the CEO is not the most efficient spokes person due to experience, knowledge or geographical location.