February 3, 2012
This week’s news regarding the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood sent shock waves around the world. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, this has been an important lesson in the power of social media and individuals to affect a decision.
This has affected me, and many of my friends and colleagues, in a variety of ways:
- As a communications professional I have read many posts analyzing the communication strategies of both organizations. There will undoubtedly be many more.
- The situation also puts the spotlight on the research smart corporations should complete before selecting community partners.
- As an individual, there are also obvious implications for personal funding choices.
The need for this research doesn’t change because the issue changes. Research and a strategic focus should always be part of a giving strategy.
I don’t want to get into who’s right and who’s wrong here but instead provide a guide to choosing nonprofits you support – as an individual or as a corporation. If we haven’t seen anything else this week, we’ve certainly seen the power social media has in swaying public opinion.
I’m sure you’d agree you want to know where your hard-earned dollars are going. It’s not that time consuming to make sure the vast majority of your check will go to direct services. Merriam Webster defines these as:
“active service on cases and work with patients as distinguished from staff functions”
While I understand completely the need for administrative costs, it’s important to understand the details behind those numbers. Here’s a portion of my post from January 20, 2010 detailing the research you can do before writing that check:
In talking with my children about the importance of giving and the school’s drive, we’ve also had to teach them a bit about what unfortunately might be called the seamier side of fundraising. As we saw after 9/11 and the 2005 tsunami, there are unscrupulous fundraisers who are more than happy to take your hard-earned dollars. It’s important to take a few minutes to make sure your money goes where you want it to go. Make sure you give to organizations you trust, or that your friends trust.
Guidestar and Charity Navigator both offer services that help you learn about nonprofits. United Way of America is another organization that thoroughly screens their partners before providing them funds. And, of course, there are any number of blogs and experts out there to tell you what to do as well. One of my favorite public relations people, Shonali Burke, offered her thoughts about the aftershocks on fundraising.
If you have the time, an organization’s IRS Form 990 is a great source of information. Pay close attention to the percentages of funds that go to “program services” as compared to administrative costs. Program services funds are actually getting to those the organization helps while administrative costs are generally overhead. Personally, organizations I like to support keep their overhead to no more than 10% of expenses.
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
October 4, 2011
I’ve posted quite a bit about the importance of planning before beginning a communications program. As strategic guides for management, we need to keep our eye on the goals and objectives of our plans. It makes us look smarter to management and also guides us through the year.
Once you’ve completed measurable goals and objectives, the next steps are determining your audience (also called stakeholder) and strategies.
I find the audience part is the easier of these two tasks. Geographic and age targets are fairly easily set. When psychographics are added, it can be more difficult but is still something familiar to many. Often, actually choosing a subset of the overall market that can be the challenge. I like to explain to management that just because our focus is on Alaskans 18-34 living off the road system doesn’t mean that a 45 year old in Anchorage won’t see the message.
The confusion often sets in when it’s time to select strategies and tactics. I’m often asked to explain the difference and find an analogy that works for me:
Think of it as a road trip. The strategy is the road you choose to drive on while the tactics are the vehicles you take on the road.
On last week’s PR20chat the discussion came up again and Jeremy Pepper said a former boss who used the World War II Battle of Normandy as an example:
Goal is to take the beach. Strategy is who lands where. Tactics is what they use
In the Universal Accreditation Board’s APR Study Guide, they add that strategies determine the “how” in a plan while the tactics are the “what.”
Understanding the importance of planning and the elements therein is one of the most important aspects of public relations for professionals who want to be known for strategy. Securing APR certification is critical for public relations and communication pros who want recognition as strategic partners. While studying for the test (which I highly recommend), professionals learn more than 30 KSAs (knowledge, skills and assessments) critical to senior communicators.
But, back to strategies. Do you have an analogy you use to separate strategies from tactics? Do you always include at least one strategy in your plans? Why or why not?
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?
