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.
As organizations continue to experience budget constraints due to the existing economic conditions, you may be tasked with re-evaluating your PR team as you plan for 2010. One of the most daunting questions you may encounter is whether to go with an in-house PR team, an external PR agency or a combination of the two. As you embark on making a decision about the type of PR team your company should employ, it’s important to understand the pros and cons of each approach before making a final decision.
Pros of an In-House Approach
One of the biggest advantages of having an in-house PR professional is that it can be more cost-effective. It’s very likely your company could hire a talented PR person for far less than the cost of paying an outside PR agency. Some of the other benefits include:
An in-house PR professional can wear multiple hats; perhaps handle marketing responsibilities in addition to PR.
An in-house PR professional can forge a close working relationship with employees within the organizations. Say you work for a high-profile company that receives a large volume of requests from the media. Because of the close relationship they’ve developed, in-house PR professionals know which experts to approach for each particular information request, making it easy for them to quickly respond to reporters’ questions.
Advantages of an Outside PR Agency
While hiring an internal PR person is critical in some cases, one of the major advantages of working with an outside PR agency is the bank of knowledge it allows you to tap into. For example:
With a PR agency, you don’t just get an individual; you get an entire team which collectively brings years of experience working on multiple accounts and a variety of media.
An agency team has the ability to brainstorm creative ideas, collectively address problems, and review each other’s materials, all of which help to ensure that your company strategically utilizes PR as effectively as possible.
The Hybrid Approach
While both the in-house and out-of-house approaches have their advantages, we believe that, if your organization can afford it, a hybrid approach – in which a company has an internal PR staff that works together with an outside agency – is the best solution for the following reasons:
A partnership between an internal PR team and an external PR agency helps to push PR efforts forward more seamlessly.
An internal staff that really understands PR enables organizations to manage their external PR agency more effectively.
Companies can accomplish their business objectives more quickly and nimbly than with either of the other two approaches.
Whether your organization hires an internal PR professional, a PR agency or uses a hybrid approach will depend largely on the size of your PR budget, the needs of your company and the degree of media interest in your organization. To learn more about how and what to evaluate when choosing a PR team, look for the next book excerpt blog post, which will provide more insight on what you should consider when evaluating prospective PR teams.
Excerpt from “Strategic Public Relations,” written by Jennifer Gehrt & Colleen Moffitt with Andrea Carlos
Are you struggling with how to help employees leverage Twitter for the benefit of your company? We have all heard stories of how employees have damaged a company’s brand via social media. However, marketing and communications executives have a tremendous opportunity to harness the power of social media to significantly benefit their organizations by enlisting the help of employees.
Consider Zillow. The provider of free real estate information is leveraging the power of Twitter to share trend information with consumers, report on celebrity home purchases and drive additional traffic to its Web site. Just do a search on Twitter and look at all the content about Zillow and you will see what I mean.
After looking at Zillow’s Twitter presence, we began thinking and researching best practices to motivate employees to tweet on behalf of the company. We came up with some interesting findings. Below you’ll find our five tips on how to harness the power of your employees on Twitter and other social media networks. After all, shouldn’t your employees all play a role in delivering the right messages about your company?
1. Establish some ground rules. Make sure employees know to only share information that is public. Ask employees to check in with you if they are uncertain about whether the information they want to share via Twitter or any other social networking platform is okay for public dissemination.
2. Provide your employees with education around best practices. Make sure your employees are familiar with best practices surrounding the use of Twitter. For instance, they should not be spamming followers with company marketing messages, but instead engaging with key audiences. Additionally, they shouldn’t use hash tags in an inappropriate manner and should also avoid slamming competitors, co-workers, etc.
3. Consider setting up consistent handles on Twitter. The Conway, Arkansas area Chamber of Commerce has set up consistent user names or handles on Twitter for 10 of its employees and it has been very effective. Jamie Gates, who is in charge of the Chamber’s social media effort TheChamberLife.com explains, “Our employees all have consistent Twitter usernames. For example, I am @chambergates. Other employees use @chambermary and @chamberbertj. We then encourage these employees to tweet positive updates about community events, services, special offers and other benefits that come from membership to the Chamber. We have had a great deal of success from this effort.”
4. Help your employees be effective. Each week, compile and send a note to your employees outlining five to 10 relevant stats or fun facts they can share about your company via Twitter. You can highlight informative articles about your company and ask your employees to share the links with their followers. Again, let them know that this content is for public dissemination and if they have other information that they want to share, they should get your approval first.
5. Remember you have to make it easy and fun. Lastly, if your employees are going to use Twitter on your company’s behalf you need to make it fun and easy for them. You also need to have faith that with the proper education and training your employees will make smart choices about what to share on social media networks. It is your job as the vice president of communications or marketing to help them understand the ground rules, arm them with content and monitor what is being said about your brand.
Clearly, before implementing any activity around social media the heads of communications departments need to consider their company’s business and communication needs carefully. It is also important to seek legal counsel to ensure all social media activity being asked of employees is in compliance with the law and your company’s policies.
We hope these tips are helpful as you look at leveraging the power of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks for your organization.
Are you looking for a tool to make it easier to follow journalists on Twitter? Cision, a global provider of media monitoring, media research, distribution and media evaluation PR software and services, recently released a new relationship-building tool for PR professionals and journalists called JournalistTweets. I have spent some time using this tool and found it to be helpful when trying to find out what types of topics are resonating with media and industry analysts. Some journalists tweet about recent articles they’ve written, which can be helpful to look at if you’re contemplating reaching out to that person.
JournalistTweets aggregates tweets from reporters, bloggers and analysts making it easy to monitor and engage with this audience. For instance, you can see what business reporters and analysts are posting via Twitter. Here are some examples.
@rkoplowitz a principal analyst at Forrester, tweeted about an upcoming seminar, “Doing a seminar with Newsgator on social networking in the enterprise – join us!”
@scobleizer, an influential technology blogger, tweeted, “Google’s social search is very interesting. I searched for “Silicon Valley” and it gives me an accurate list of friends talking about that.”
And @rbkarel, principal analyst at Forrester, tweeted, “#iod2009 panelist discusses use of entity analytics. Haven’t heard much from IBM on EAS in quite a while, esp regards to bigger message.”
JournalistTweets provides a real-time snapshot of what thousands of reporters, editors, bloggers and broadcasters are discussing in the areas of business, technology, lifestyle/entertainment and health. Currently, Cision streams content from journalists in North America and the United Kingdom, with plans to expand to additional countries in the near future.
This is a great tool to monitor the types of journalists are interested in or have written about recently. It is also a great way to build relationships with media. As the media landscape continues to mature, we anticipate social media will increasingly become the platform of choice for establishing relationships with journalists. It will be interesting to see what other types of tools become available.
To learn more about how to connect with journalists via Twitter, send us an e-mail at [email protected].
Communiqué Public Relations (www.communiquepr.com) is seeking a graduating senior college student to fill an unpaid internship vacancy.
Within our boutique firm, we look to interns to provide hands-on tactical and administrative support. We are excited to have an opening for an intern starting in December 2009.
An intern’s experience will be as rewarding as he or she desires with responsibilities commensurate to the commitment he or she demonstrates. As an active member of the account team, this intern will acquire “hands-on” public relations experience, gaining exposure to areas such as media relations, press material development, media list building and more.
Intern candidates must be comfortable with Microsoft Windows and Office (esp. Excel, Word & PowerPoint) and be articulate, energetic and eager to learn.
Duration: Three to six months
Desired start date: December 2009
Qualifications: Graduating senior college student majoring in public relations, journalism, communications, business administration, marketing, English or related field.
Desired skills:
Self-starter who can work independently with minimum supervision as well as collaboratively in a team environment
Good oral and written communication skills
Organized and efficient
Friendly and personable
Articulate and thoughtful
Energetic and enthusiastic
Willingness and eagerness to learn
Consistent, regular and punctual attendance
Fluency with Microsoft Windows XP and Office Professional 2003 (Outlook, Excel, Word, Power Point)
Interns at Communiqué PR typically assist with the following types of work:
Conduct research as requested
Perform general administrative duties (i.e. photocopy, fax, note taking, ordering supplies, etc.)
Draft and compile press releases, briefing materials, status reports, coverage updates, etc.
Assist with press outreach and communication
Stay grounded in our clients’ business and PR goals
Please send your resumé and cover letter to [email protected] by November 13, 2009.
Communiqué PR values collaborative relationships with clients who appreciate having a PR agency at their side to help meet company objectives. We are strategic in our thinking, focused in our implementation and dedicated to providing measurable results along with exceptional client service. Our goal is to exceed client expectations at every turn.
Recently, Colleen Moffitt and Jennifer Gehrt, co-founders of Communiqué PR were quoted in the Daily Journal of Commerce (also picked up by the Associated Press) and The Spokesman-Review about organizations’ use of social mediums such as Twitter.
Twitter enables companies to monitor conversations about their products and services and also gauge consumers’ sentiment towards the company. In addition, unlike some social networks such as LinkedIn, which is a closed network, Twitter allows businesses to connect with new people and track the competition.
In the articles, both Colleen and Jennifer leverage their personal and professional experiences with Twitter and advise companies to consider engaging in this medium to monitor conversations and converse with key audiences. However, in order to do this successfully, organizations need to make a solid commitment to Twitter (or other social media) and appoint someone within the organization to maintain and regularly update the account and engage with other users.
To read The Spokesman-Review article entitled, “Businesses Dip Toes into Online Networking Pools,” which includes insight and examples from Jennifer on how companies and non-profit organizations are utilizing this medium, click here.
Additionally, you can read the Daily Journal of Commerce article entitled, “Firms Wonder: To Tweet or Not to Tweet?” by clicking here to gauge Colleen’s perspective on Twitter and get a sense of what she discussed during the recent Northwest Environmental Business Council luncheon.
“Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” is a book written by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dwek. Based on decades of research on achievement and success, Dwek outlines how with the right mindset, we can fulfill our potential and achieve our toughest goals.
Everyone on our team is reading the book and discussing how we can apply some of the principles outlined in the book in both our private and professional lives. The first chapter outlines the two basic mindsets – the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. According to Dwek, a fixed mindset is one in which you believe your “qualities are carved in stone” while a growth mindset is “based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.”
In the PR world, as with many professions, our work is ever-changing and oftentimes, we are tasked with challenging projects. In order to be successful, it can be helpful to have a growth mindset and look at these challenges as a way to grow professionally. When we are pitching stories on behalf of our clients, we are often faced with roadblocks, such as journalists not having the resources to write an article or not having enough time for a briefing. It’s important to look at these roadblocks as a challenge and creatively brainstorm ways to secure that coveted coverage or media or analyst briefing – rather than just giving up and blaming ourselves for failing to achieve success. For example, if the journalist is pressed for time and isn’t able to write an article because the publication is understaffed, we could offer to write a byline article or editorial to save time and resources.
It’s been fascinating to discover how a mindset can really influence the various aspects of your life. Have you been faced with a challenge recently in your professional or personal life? How would you evaluate your mindset in that particular situation? We would love to hear about your experience and how you think your mindset impacted the outcome of the situation.