November 21, 2011
Last week, the conversation here was about ways to listen (and hear) and on joining the conversation on the Internet. In this post, I want to tie social media/electronic tools back to the traditional tools many of us cut our public relations teeth on.
In the late 1970s when I began my career, we hand delivered news releases to local media and mailed (yes, snail mailed) releases to out of town media. We arranged events and wrote tons of speeches for our clients to get word out at key constituent meetings. Newsletters and mass communication were mimeographed, and we did all our work on typewriters.
Today, many of the tools are still important, especially relationships with key influencers. I always tell my clients it’s important to work in both worlds using tools based on the needs outlined in an overall strategy. Take, for example a client who wants to sell businesses a product that comes with a high price point, but it’s a younger tech savvy group that understands its use in the work place.
Executives in a larger company are more likely to respond to information received through a chamber of commerce or rotary meeting, or on traditional news programs. They might have a couple social media accounts but aren’t using them the same way younger staff might be. Younger employees are more likely learn from their peers on social media and less likely to read/watch traditional news programs. Without using tools in both worlds, you’ll limit your exposure.
Regardless of which tools you use, developing a story around your program is critical. Think about your story from the perspective of the reader, and not that of the company marketers. Focus first on the features the customer/target will get and then the advantages and benefits. Leave the boilerplate to the end, or incorporate it into the features.
The tactics you choose should include traditional news releases, speaking engagements at business meetings as well as a series of Google+, Facebook and Twitter campaigns chosen because you know where individuals decisions makers can be reached.
What hasn’t changed today is the importance of reaching out to individuals who can help you tell your story. More about that tomorrow.
Part 1: Listening (And Hearing) Crucial In Communication Plans
Part 2: Now That You Know What’s Being Said, Join the Conversation
Part 4: Reach Out and Engage Someone
September 21, 2011
Last weekend I was in Walla Walla, Washington for the Whitman College Alumni Board meeting. We were basically a group of 13 people (graduates from between 1962 and 2007) from across the country joined by a common experience. A group committed to strengthening ties other alumnus have with the school.
Talk focused on finalizing our five-year strategic plan with a vision to create a place alumnus call “home.” We want to strengthen the bonds Whitties have with each other and the school.
It’s important to know the bonds are already pretty strong. We all realize our college experience is different from the experience many others have in college. Around 50 percent of our alums give financially to the school each year. Many more are involved through their volunteer effort. Many of us started the planning process by asking ourselves questions:
- What do I care most about regarding Whitman?
- Why do I care? After all it’s been more than 30 years!
- Who else cares? Why does that matter to me?
- How can I help those who care?
- What can I do to make more people to care?
By asking fellow alumni these questions, we’ll be able to create a plan that helps strengthen ties with the school. It’s a long-term project we’re excited about and hope is successful.
In thinking about it, these are great questions for communicators to ask when creating community relations plans. When I look at applying these lessons to clients, the same principles and similar questions apply:
- What do employees care most about? Why?
- What are the biggest needs in our community?
- How can we help strengthen the community?
- Is there a way our employees can also help through volunteering?
- What about our customers? Where do they want us to help?
- What can we do to make more people care about this?
The answers to these and other questions help provide a framework from which a targeted community relations plan can be developed. Like many other aspects of communications, without a plan that includes measurable goals you can’t possibly know if you’re truly been successful.
How do you help your clients make sure their community programs are on target and focus in areas they care about. How do you identify organizations that need your client’s help?
~It sounds simple but it’s really not.
August 30, 2011
Almost every day I see another discussion about who owns social media, whether social media will completely reinvent the profession of public relations and on and on. I’m not going to weigh in and answer any of those questions because, quite frankly, I don’t think it matters. Instead I’d like to offer my own viewpoint on how public relations professionals can enhance strategic communications programs by employing social media tools.
For more than thirty years, I’ve been proud to be a public relations professional. I’ve built strategic plans that are based on research, analysis, communications and evaluations. Those fundamentals haven’t changed with social media and I don’t expect them to change with the next mousetrap to come along either.
What has changed are the tools in our tool box and the way we communicate and engage our target audiences. Obviously, the reason this change is occurring is the way our audiences receive their news has changed. Does it mean every program needs to contain all the social media tools? There are literally thousands of social media tools from which to choose so the answer is a resounding no.
I maintain it all goes back to planning…if you don’t know where you’re going and why you’re going there, how can you possibly know when you arrive? By the same token, if you don’t know to whom you’re talking, how can you possibly know how to reach them?
As outside strategic counsel to my clients, it is important I understand the tools and when it’s best to use (or not use) each one. That’s how we rationalize spending time each day reading, learning about, and using the new tools. Some days it seems there are too many but most of the time it’s fairly easy to know where to concentrate.
That means I do a lot of listening and planning before I choose the tools. And, I haven’t completed too many plans lately that don’t include a mix of traditional and new tools that are available. If we are going to affect change for our clients, we need to know what’s out there and what is having an impact on their customers’ decision making. In the end, it’s normally telling a story to a variety of people, using multiple tools and tactics.
How do you listen and learn what’s important in your world? Do you believe public relations can continue to grow and thrive? What do you think are the obstacles in our way? Can we really live in peaceful harmony?
August 16, 2011
Earlier this week, my friend Rosanna Fiske, APR, wrote a piece for the Poynter Institute about challenges journalists will likely encounter when transitioning to public relations. We’re seeing lots of folks making this transition now as ad budgets are squeezing the size of traditional media. The article raises some excellent points about what journalists face when making the transition. And there is so much more to public relations than press releases.
When counseling clients, my first steps involve a lot of listening and some planning. I first determine the goals, strategies and objectives and get some idea how the client will measure success. Only after having that understanding should we open the toolbox to see which tactics can help achieve those goals.
If you don’t know WHAT you want to do, you can’t possibly know HOW to do it.
So, how does one do this without getting bogged down? By asking some key questions and doing some research. Some baseline questions I consider with each project:
- What are we trying to do?
- Who’s our competition?
- To whom are we talking?
- What do we want to tell them?
- What do we want them to think about/do?
- What do they currently think about us?
- What is critical to our success?
- What are you concerned about?
- What is working currently?
- What do we do better than anyone else?
- How will we know we’ve been successful?
Once we have these answers, there’s normally a path that’s developing to take us to our destination. We can add to that plan and build in checks and balances along the way. As we make our way down the path, I use the answers to help remind the client why we’re doing certain things. For larger projects, I also plan a mid-point check to make sure we’re still on track.
Have any of the answers changed now that we have more information?
From my position as outside counselor, it makes me smarter. From a business standpoint, it helps me achieve meaningful results. That’s my system and I’m sure others have planning systems that work best for them. What are your methods?
June 29, 2011
I’ve been a communications professional for more than 30 years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that One Size Does Not Fit All. Yes there are things we’ve learned from experience to use in the next project, and the checklist for Client B’s event might be derived from one a few years back. In fact, there might be things we do for almost every project.
But they are also very different.
When I worked at a multi-national agency there was a competitor who almost always submitted boilerplate type responses to RFP requests. We knew what they were submitting based on the budget in the RFP. It made it pretty easy to beat them.
We didn’t decide our tactics until we listened. That made us harder to beat. We had to understand their needs and desires before recommending a solution.
We had to understand at least part of the competitive landscape to know what problem we were solving. That problem helped dictate the solutions.
Today, listening can be done online before even meeting the prospect. I almost always offer a different perspective…because I’m not there every day. I might still pitch an event or a publicity tour, but it’s always based on a strategy and goals. Today it also has a very large engagement component.
And, that’s where we can also be misunderstood.
How many times do you get a call saying…I need a brochure, press conference, event, etc. When you really start to listen and talk you realize what they really need is to change a behavior or belief among a specific audience. And there are a variety of ways to reach the end result. There are many tools in the tool box today that we didn’t have when I became a public relations professional more than 30 years ago.
Today there are so many tools out there to use it can be mind boggling. And that’s where our communities comes in – our online communities – of individual people around the world we’ve come to rely on. To help us make decisions. To aid in solving problems. To inform us of new tools and offer guidance.
And, that’s how we find ourselves making sweeping generalities.
With the ever growing use of the web, smart phones and social media tools, it’s very difficult to keep up and our reliance on our networks becomes even more important. Sharing tools and offering advice is critical. With that comes a responsibility. Sweeping statements about brand new products don’t help your credibility. Saying a product is DOA probably isn’t such a great idea. And these statements are even worse when it’s apparent you haven’t tried the product.
But it does demonstrate the need to always be watching and re-evaluating what’s important. Who is in your network and influencing you will likely change how you feel over time. And that’s okay.
With influence comes responsibility. To listen carefully to hear different points of view. To try new products and understand how different groups might use them. To see the world through the rose colored glasses of others.
That’s why quality is even more critical.
When “we” speak in social media circles, the ripple effect is enormous. It sometimes reaches well beyond our usual community. That’s why the tone and the word choice is so critical and the quality of the message so key.
From my standpoint, one size doesn’t fit all…
but the T-shirt better be made of the finest cotton…
at least in my book.
In the late 1970s when I began my career, we hand delivered news releases to local media and mailed (yes, snail mailed) releases to out of town media. We arranged events and wrote tons of speeches for our clients to get word out at key constituent meetings. Newsletters and mass communication were mimeographed, and we did all our work on typewriters.
