Public relations and managing reputation

This is the second part of a two-part series on social media’s impact on the practice of PR and the profession itself. This post talks about how, in the 21st century, PR should be leveraging its logical leadership of social media for all its worth and use it as an opportunity to position itself more favourably as a management discipline that delivers business-relevant results.

Whilst I don’t pretend to have any great insights on this matter, I was recently interviewed by British uni student Hayley McDonald (@HAYCMAC) on how social media is impacting on the practice of PR and how it is changing the way PR pros work, with the critical upshot being that making the right strategic decision, on a variety of levels, is more important (and, yes, more challenging) than ever.

The most common thought that is contained within crisis management literature is that somehow a crisis is just an external event that can be managed with the right level of resources and preparation. Paul Ritchie, author of Stay On Message, says this is incomplete and it misses the most dangerous variable in any crisis and that is the way a spin doctor actually responds to the issue.

The strategy driving what content goes on corporate websites needs to fit into the overarching organisational communication strategy, yet so wide-ranging and large can corporate websites be, that they sometimes seem to occupy their own ‘micro-climate’ where a unique approach, arguably, needs to be applied.

In this post, with the insight and assistance of a range of communication professionals – digital, SEO (search engine optimisation), marketing, public relations – I am going to outline a number of strategic and tactical elements to consider when utilising websites as an organisational communication mechanism.