Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
This just in! U.S. News & World Report recently released its “Best Jobs of 2012” list, which is based on the Labor Department’s employment projections surrounding professions that should be abundantly hiring over the next several years. Given this forecast, I made a stellar choice in my career path as “public relations specialist” tops the list for best creative services job in 2012 and is ranked 41st overall.
The advent and increased eruption of social media has created a whole new ball game for companies to engage. In today’s social media dominated world, employing a traditional media relations program is no longer enough to gain thought leadership and increase visibility. Now, companies must push the PR envelope and embrace a truly integrated communication approach which may include reputation management, crisis communication strategies, social media engagement, branding and more. With no signs of social media innovations slowing down, this large piece of the communication pie is largely being assigned to PR departments and agencies, leading to more robust scopes of work for PR professionals.
According to Gerard Corbett, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), it’s the “onset of social infrastructure such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest, combined with the versatility of Web tools” that has created a boom in public relations jobs. In addition, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects public relations positions to grow 22.5 percent between 2010 and 2020, which means an additional 58,200 job openings.
Corbett notes a public relations specialist position requires writing skills, critical thinking ability, fast turnaround, patience, a thick-skin mentality, and creativity. He also adds “wallflowers need not apply—public relations specialists must have an outgoing, self-confident, and friendly personality,” and we at Communiqué PR completely agree!
So, speaking of growth, Communiqué PR is looking for an experienced Account Manager. If you, or someone you know, values creativity, highly collaborative relationships and delivering quality work, please visit our careers page.
Over the past several months, communication professionals and practitioners in the public relations industry have been buzzing about a new campaign designed to redefine a specific industry: our very own. In November 2011, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the PR industry’s largest organization, launched in international campaign called “Public Relations Defined” to modernize the definition of public relations. Why?
The PRSA’s existing definition, which was last updated by the organization in 1982, defines public relations as “helping an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.” Needless to say, it’s an ill-defined definition that does not reflect the changes in our industry that have fundamentally changed how we communicate and engage with customers, consumers and the general public. Before social media, public relations was focused on identifying, communicating and managing a company’s message to different audiences. It was very much a one-way dialogue. Today, our role has evolved to initiating and facilitating an ongoing conversation with various audiences, utilizing content developed not only by us and our clients, but also others to influence opinions and decisions.
Gerard F. Corbett, PRSA chair and CEO, accurately articulated how our profession has evolved in his op-ed piece in The Drum on Feb. 6, 2012 by stating “public relations has evolved from a largely media relations-based discipline to a modern profession steeped in a complex mix of stakeholder engagement, reputation management and services that blend paid, earned and owned media (i.e., advertising, PR and marketing).” Given this, it is only fitting PRSA’s campaign to develop a new industry definition uses a crowd-sourcing model.
For a two-week period beginning November 20, 2011, PRSA enabled members and non-members to submit suggestions via their website by completing the following form: “they [do what] with/for [whom] to [do what] for [what purpose].” According to PRSA’s analysis, “more than 927 definitions were submitted, comprising 15,688 words; and more than 80 comments, many of which offered ‘free-form’ definitions.” Once the submission period was closed, PRSA shared this word cloud to provide a snapshot of the key words submitted.
PRSA and the 12 other professional partners involved in this campaign reviewed the submissions and drafted three finalists that were posted to the website for public voting. The “task force” once again tallied the votes, reviewed industry articles, blogs and comments made by readers on the campaign, debated further and revised the final three candidate definitions. They were posted once again on PRSA’s website for the public to vote on which definition best defines public relations. They are:
- Public relations is the management function of researching, communicating and collaborating with publics to build mutually beneficial relationships.
- Public relations is the strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.
- Public relations is the strategic process of engagement between organizations and publics to achieve mutual understanding and realize goals.
As you can imagine, these definitions have continued to fuel conversation and debate about our profession, which is not surprising. Our role as communication professionals is complex and diverse. Everyone in this industry – whether you are an individual or an agency – has a different role, different set of responsibilities and a different approach. Developing a single definition that summarizes our profession collectively is a major endeavor, and one that will most likely not please everyone. Which is why it is important to remember the goal of PRSA’s initiative, (and note the underlined words are ones I have specifically highlighted of importance): “to devise a baseline definition that captures the core essence of what it is public relations professionals do; one that every professional could reference, use and improve upon by adding context specific to what they do, and how they do it.”
While we wait for the final definition to be unveiled by PRSA, our team at Communiqué PR continues to remain grounded in the belief that through a strategic approach our efforts help our clients accomplish their toughest business objectives. Whether it is building a brand or maintaining its reputation, recruiting talent, driving sales or gaining market share, we take great pride in engaging in conversations across the various communication landscapes to share our client’s stories in a clear and compelling manner to shape the public’s perception.
We all have certain products we are loyal to: a type of gum, a particular kind of soap, or even a specific brand of electronics. Think of Apple for example: many people own the brand’s laptops, phones and tablets. Although we rarely think about it, there is something about our favorite products and brands that keeps us coming back for more– regardless of their similar (and perhaps less expensive) counterparts.
In today’s marketplace, having a well-designed product is often not enough to create a bond with customers. People must be aware of your product and understand how it will be of value to them before it can become their favorite go-to item. As Kathy Cripps points out in a blog post for the Council of PR Firms, it’s not just about getting information out there—it has to be useful information. Oftentimes, this is where a well-orchestrated product PR campaign can help. Positive publicity can give products a competitive edge and build customer loyalty.
So what exactly is product PR? Typically, product PR refers to placing product reviews or generating news coverage of a specific product. Comparative reviews, stand-alone expert reviews, or customer reviews frequently found on retail websites, such as Amazon.com, often have a significant impact on adoption of products and services.
PR professionals must take a “product perspective” before embarking on a campaign. This entails identifying the business problem the product is solving, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the product, learning about the key features and functionality of the product, obtaining compelling data and statistics about the product, and navigating the competitive landscape. It also is necessary to develop credible, memorable and useful messaging to ensure the product you are promoting is easily described and understood.
We have recently been working on securing reviews of Mobidia’s application called, My Data Manager. This application allows Android and iPhone users to monitor their mobile data usage. The app shows consumers how much data they are using and sends alerts to them before they breach their monthly data thresholds to avoid overages and bill shock.
To help journalists understand how this app compares to other ways of checking data usage, we developed the following table.
Taking a product perspective can also be useful for initiatives or campaigns that don’t involve a product because it can refresh the way you think. Since it is a presidential election year, it is easy to see how this product approach might be applied to a politician by his or her campaign team. Smart campaign managers should think through the following:
- How does the candidate measure up against the competition? Where does he win and where does he lose in relation to others seeking votes?
- Are his or her messages easy to understand, memorable and credible?
- What are the areas of weakness that need to be mitigated before they are detrimental to the campaign?
As you can see, approaching non-product initiatives from the product perspective can be extremely useful. Think about educating yourself in some of tenets of product PR. You may be surprised how helpful this approach may be.
Exact Target, the company behind one of the web’s most popular Twitter management tools, CoTweet, announced last month that they will no longer be offering their free service. Instead, they will be offering SocialEngage, an enterprise-ready, premium social media management solution that comes at a high price.
While SocialEngage sounds great, many of the clients we work with are new to social media, or have limited budgets to spend on social media management. Paying for an enterprise-ready social dashboard just isn’t feasible or sensible for everyone. However, we’ve identified a fantastic alternative called Roost.
Roost is a social media management platform that aims to help companies manage their engagement through campaigns and individual posts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Offered by Vertical Response, it promises to help smaller companies manage their social media properties and the best part is, it is currently offered free of charge.
What we really like about Roost is the option to schedule Tweets individually or for an extended period of time as a campaign. It even helps you draft your posts by asking for interesting links, quotes, updates and photos. We haven’t yet found another social dashboard that has this rich capability.
As with all PR activity, measurement is essential (we recently posted about the purpose of measurement). Roost provides a scorecard tool that helps you track your level of engagement, and the success of that engagement, on your social media channels. It can even provide tailored tips on how to expand your company’s audience.
If your company doesn’t have the budget to keep up with CoTweet, or if you’re shopping around for a social media management platform, we encourage you to watch the demo and give Roost a try. You can also explore other options to meet your social media needs. Mashable recently posted an article on other CoTweet alternatives to try.
Forbes.com posted an interesting article the other day titled, “How NOT to do public relations: An interview with Peter Shankman.” Peter is a former PR practitioner and founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO), an online service connecting journalists with PR people.
In the Q&A, Peter and contributor Jennifer Leggio discuss the relationship between PR practitioners and the media. Notes Peter, “There will always be problems between PR people and journalists, no matter how much we try and repair the rift. Look, fundamentally, the two are simply designed to oppose. On one hand, you have journalists, who have the job of finding actual news – a good story, a trend, something interesting. That’s not easy to do, and they’re being asked every day to do more with less. On the flip side, you have PR people, who are beholden to the request of the clients – A very simple, yet incredibly complex request: ‘Get us press.’”
Managing this balance is exactly what’s so great about being in PR, and at Communiqué PR we pride ourselves on our relationships with both our clients and journalists.
Here’s what we focus on in order to maintain that balance:
- The role of PR is to provide strategic counsel to our clients – first and foremost, our responsibility is to them – even though they might not always want to hear what we have to say. This counsel is based on research and prior experience, and we’re the experts – it’s our job.
- We are also responsible to the journalists whom we are pitching on behalf of our clients. It is imperative that we do our homework to understand their coverage areas so that when we send them a compelling pitch it’s about something they write about.
- As an independent third party, it is essential for us to offer objectivity and vision. Sometimes our clients are too close to an issue to understand why a strategy will be unsuccessful.
- Both the PR practitioner’s and the client’s credibility are at stake if the pitch isn’t newsworthy. After all, it will be much harder to get the journalist’s attention next time.
- Remember, PR is an ongoing process that requires you to continually evaluate your strategy to address changing needs/environments. It’s okay to revisit goals and make a mid-course correction in order to allow for the best possible outcome.
Remember the old saying; it’s a marathon not a sprint. This is true in PR as well, as we work to create new relationships and solidifying existing ones.
I recently read the book “How to Measure Anything,” by Douglas W. Hubbard. As the title infers, the book makes the bold assertion that anything can be measured.
In the context of public relations, measurement is significant. On the Communiqué PR blog, we have addressed topics such as Measuring the Value of PR, Measuring ROI in Social Media, Measuring Media Relations Takes a Multifaceted Approach and Determining Your Share of Voice. Measurement is important because it informs decisions.
But before incorporating measurement into your PR approach, it’s essential to note two things about measurement. First, measurement doesn’t have to be 100-percent accurate; rather, it’s a quantitatively expressed reduction in uncertainty. You may not know how many people actually read what you’ve written on your Twitter account, but you can determine how many people are followers, how many are sharing your tweets and how many send you direct messages. This information reduces any uncertainty you may have about the number of people who may be reading your content.
Second, if you’re trying to measure something, there should be some expected outcome from measuring it. You shouldn’t measure something for the sake of measurement. For example, if you want to measure how effective a particular strategy is, you probably want to do so to know if you should continue with that given strategy.
Prior to measuring something, asking yourself the following five questions will help you determine exactly what you are talking about and why you care about it.
1. What is the decision this measurement is supposed to support?
2. What is the definition of the thing being measured in terms of observable consequences? For example, if you want to talk about “engagement” in social media, what specifically does it mean? Does it mean interactions per person per month? Does it mean “likes,” “shares” or “comments” on Facebook? And what decisions depend on that measurement of engagement?
3. How, exactly, does this thing matter to the decision being asked? Using the example noted above, why does engagement matter to your specific social media efforts? Will the measurement information you glean change the outcome of a particular strategy?
4. How much do you know about it now (i.e., what is your current level of uncertainty)?
5. What is the value of additional information?
The first three questions define the need for measurement. As Hubbard notes, “If a measurement matters at all, it is because it must have some conceivable effect on decisions and behavior. If we can’t identify a decision that could be affected by a proposed measure and how it could change those decisions, then the measurement simply has no value.”
In public relations, we like to talk about “readership.” But to measure readership (such as the readership of a company blog or newsletter), we really need to define what we mean by “readership” in the first place. Does this entail the number of people subscribed? Is this the number of people who click on a link? Does clicking on a link mean they read something? And why specifically are we trying to understand how many readers something has? What decision will be based on us obtaining this measurement? These questions and others should help inform your business decisions.
Question no. 4 is essential to helping you understand what you currently do know about something. As Hubbard notes, “The lack of having an exact number is not the same as knowing nothing.” Rather, he suggests that your answer have a 90-percent confidence level that the correct answer is within a particular range.
For example, if someone asked how many inches long a business card is, you wouldn’t necessarily provide its exact dimensions. You’d note that it was greater than two inches, but less than five inches. So you have a 90-percent confidence level that the exact length of the card is between those two numbers. The goal is not to have a “right” answer, but rather remove uncertainty. If you aren’t sure of something, widen your range.
Back to the readership question: You could guess that it’s between 1 and 5,000 readers. If a readership of 5,000 seems like an extreme stretch for the item in question, you at least know you have an upper limit, and it will help you try to narrow down the range. On the lower end of the range, you could measure click-throughs to determine that approximately 2,500 people open the email. So you would be 90-percent certain that readership includes a range of 2,500-5,000 readers. If you feel that not all of the 2,500 click-throughs actually read the email, you could broaden your range slightly to account for that difference, making it a range of 2,000 to 5,000.
Finally, question no.5 should help you determine if there truly is value in obtaining additional information. For example, if you measure your company’s blog or newsletter readership, discover it’s extremely low, but don’t do anything about it, the measurement is then an exercise in futility. If no value is to be added, then don’t proceed with the measurement. Alternately, you could determine that readership is higher than expected, which will support a decision to continue producing the content.
As you can see, measurement involves a high degree of strategic thinking before even attempting to measure something. Once you’ve determined specifically what you’re after and how it will be useful for your business and communications objectives, Hubbard has a great five-step process (he calls this the “Applied Information Economics” method) to help you approach improving assessment. Giving extra thought to measurement will help you provide more meaningful information to help shape business decisions, and in turn provide more valuable service to your clients.
Joni Kirk