It should come as no surprise to hear that Google, one of the most potent organisations in the world, has trust as one of its positioning lynchpins…yet in a (business) world still coming to terms with the fact that those defining a brand are more often its stakeholders than the brand itself, this is still close to being revolutionary, especially if it is being effectively put into action, rather than simply being pontificated on.

Lucinda Barlow, Google Australia and New Zealand’s Head of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, put forward this premise at Frocomm’s 2010 New Media Summit. “We all work for and represent brands and brands are all about trust,” Lucinda said. “People have certain expectations of a brand and that’s what we have to portray.”

Lucinda Barlow

But are all brands about trust? I don’t think so. Australian Wheat Board? Rio Tinto? Westpac? Not exactly high-performing brands in the trust stakes.

Google are a fascinating entity in many ways, but their confluence of the dimensions of communication, products and societal centrality is one aspect of this. As a result of this it possesses an enormous amount of power:

• The power over people’s ability to access information (including information being organised in a manner customised to people’s varying ‘niche needs’)
• The power over people’s means of accessing information
• The power of influencing government and regulatory regimes.

In summary, this means the company is playing a significant role in shaping society itself.

NB. A full and comprehensive PDF report on the New Media Summit can be downloaded for free.

The power of giving away control

Lucinda (@lucindabarlow) describes Google as having collaboration at its heart and giving up power to its stakeholders. What a breath of fresh air for a public relations professional!

“Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Lucinda. “This means giving our users around the world access to the information they want, from the widest variety of sources, wherever they are.”

And it is interesting to note that, despite its competition being, “one click away,” Lucinda said Google’s policy is not to lock people into utilising the products it develops, but to, “allow customers to move their data out of Google’s services easily.

“We have a dedicated engineering team, working across all products, called the ‘Data Liberation Front’ to make this happen. To keep you coming back, we have to keep innovating to create great services that are important to people and change their lives.”

Making it easy to not use Google has a number of implications for a professional communicator:

• It gives more power to consumers to set the terms of the relationship. In fact, with products like Google Maps, consumers have the power to actually change the parameters of the product itself
• It is empowering the consumer to be a participant in the brand, not an observer
• The numerous listening and interactive posts it has in the online environment reflect the way its business model is profoundly influenced by its stakeholders’ knowledge, views and behaviour.

Analogous to this is the approach that Lucinda said Google takes to its stakeholder communication: “We need to be fast, responsive, open and transparent in our communication.”

Eavesdropping for insights

“There is a large and growing audience of people who actively listen to, distribute and publish their opinions online,” said Lucinda. “This gives real power to the vocal minority. According to Nielsen, in Australia 45% of people online publish their opinions specifically about products, services, and brands online and a massive 86% read them. It’s such an influential space.

“When you probe what the most trusted sources of information are, word of mouth comes out tops followed by online…because online is seen as a way to scale ‘word of mouth’ and tap into it en masse.
“And you’re not just about managing what gets said about your brand in order to effect sales directly. It’s also about consumer insight. It’s like being permanently tapped in to the world’s largest focus group. Our users decide what’s popular and what they want to watch. They talk about it. They debate with each other. Those comments are gold. Just ask United Airlines…”

Social responsibility

The power of Google means it has a more profound, socially pervasive social responsibility than most organisations. Its enormous global reach (i.e. all stratas of virtually all societies) make this more challenging for Google than most, as different societies and their various elements all have differing expectations of organisations.

As long as trust remains central to its business model, however, it has a reliable compass with which to steer itself. Communication, and public relations in particular, is the ideal mechanism to facilitate this journey occurring.

What are your thoughts on this post? What are your perceptions of trust in the business world? Are organisations working harder to earn it form their stakeholders? Are they sincere? Are Google sincere? What impact are public relations professionals having on organisations’ trustworthiness? Is social media making a difference to our ability to make organisations behave in a manner that makes them more trustworthy? It would be great to hear your opinions.

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite! PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

Related posts

• Free report: PR at war – opinion explosion at social media summit
• Strategic communication with Facebook
• Online content helping public relations manage reputation

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Trust, crowds (utilisation of, communicating to, segmenting of…), integration (or not) of social media and corporate websites, the death of ‘networked’ communication, content generation issues and the challenges of change within social media were some of the primary themes that were either explicitly stated at the 2010 Frocomm New Media Summit, bubbled under its surface or were notable not for their articulation, but by their surprising absence…

For your free report looking into and analysing the 2010 Frocomm New Media Summit, download the FROCOMM New Media Summit 2010_Report. And don’t forget to share it with your colleagues, peers and friends; RT about it; and get your contacts to subscribe to this blog.

Articles in the report feature content formulated in four different ways:

• Reports on summit presentations by speakers
• Interviews with speakers post-summit
• Analysis by Ruci Fixter and myself
• The integration of perspectives and content from other professional communicators, business people and bloggers.

The summit was a gathering of some leading minds of the Australian public relations and social media industries, as well as a large and enthusiastically interactive audience. There was an interesting balance of presentations that took a helicopter strategic view, along with those that were more hands on/tactically-based, with both leavened by plenty of case studies.

But perhaps the most notable message that comes out of gatherings like this is: don’t sit there and vacillate; get in and get your hands dirty; expertise comes with experience, not the endless pondering of ramifications.

Of course, the way we as communication professionals act should depend on evidence-based market research. We should consider all the options and seek to apply best practice methodologies.

But social media is still evolving at a rapid rate. Each strategy and its tactical dimensions need to be customised to the business outcome sought, to the relevant target audiences and to the issue/product/service at hand.

At the end of the day, your communication activity may be the first of its kind. So whilst you can listen and learn and formulate, the best answer to your social media dilemma may just be to do. But don’t dive in thinking you are going to kill it from the start.

Strive to become the expert. But, as many speakers stated or implied, humility and adaptability are valuable. Pack them in your baggage.

Trust your public relations

The notion of trust was elemental to many of the presentations at the summit. That is because trust is what social media is deified as helping generate (if not accelerate). Trust, of course, helps generate positive word of mouth, the holy grail of marketers:

• free endorsement of products, services and organisations
• the viral, no charge (well, sort of…) snowball effect (and especially when exercised through social media)
• extrapolation into increased sales/profits.

Social media platforms, as Brendon Hughes recently wrote, “have changed our definition of friend’.” The interesting question that Brendon posed was: “Is social media making trust weaker or stronger?” His feeling is that social media is not delivering as broad a degree of trust as marketers might like to think.

Social media, corporate website or trad media?

The question of where the greatest influence on consumers will emanate from in coming years was not asked at the summit. This surprised me. Options I put on the table to some of the speakers included:

• Social media sources
• Corporate websites
• Traditional (in both ‘hard’ and digital format) media.

Of course, it isn’t an either/or zero-sum game. Shades of grey are permitted!

But as I discuss in a series of posts from my blog that are included in this report, PR needs to work harder at website communication opportunities. Strategic communication, especially those elements with a digital bent, should be wary about putting all their tactical eggs in the social media basket. The corporate website has an opportunity to:

• provide engaging, useful and credible information to stakeholders
• rank higher in web searches because of this content, intelligent backlinking strategies and appropriate technical IT support
• act as a hub for social media activity.

This thinking has been reinforced, according to Andrew Hughes of Reprise Media, because Google changes means brands need to focus more on content and one of the best ways to do this is, “publish as much relevant content on your own website…”

PR: experts in content generation?

Content. What a hassle. What an opportunity!

But…if you don’t got it, you don’t got nothing to say. It’s the elephant in the room.

Generating content valued by your target audiences takes time and a lot of it. Think of all the social media platforms to feed. Recycling and customisation will work to a degree, but this won’t entirely sate the beast. So where are the resources coming from?

And who can’t love the switch that Matthew Gain pulled on summit attendees, saying we need to think like journos when creating content for our organisations, not like PR pros. This is a favourite topic of David Meerman Scott, the king advocate of corporate website communication.

Behind content are two further themes: creativity and viral. All three work together. A major challenge with social media is getting consumers to advocate the content. For it to go viral. This might occur because it is fun, because it is creative, because it is relevant to consumers’ lifestyles or because it exhibits thought leadership.

Thought leadership works if it:

• provides POD
• adds value to target audiences’ lifestyles
• is relevant to the organisation or brand that is promulgating it.

Networked communication is dead; long live the niche

Dan Ilic said it at the summit. Seth Godin has said it in the context of micro magazines. And Mike ‘Zappy’ Zapolin said it at a recent conference: niche is winning the war. Broadcast, big reach media networks are dead.

But this notion of big-reach communication being almost dead, whether it is in the context of media outlets, social media or other forms of communication, seems to me to be just a tad precious.

PR and marketing folk love reaching as many eyeballs as possible. So do clients and CEOs. (It makes for impressive reading in monthly reports, after all.) And I bet it is likely that a lot of direct mail is undertaken based on stats that underline that though there is a lot of waste, so is there sufficient ROI to keep on cutting down forests.

A very big challenge in going niche, in being very targeted and customised, is the ROI. Smaller audiences should mean, in theory, smaller investment (unless this audience is the influencer on a wider group). But easier said than done.

So whilst I love the notion, I’m not so sure some of the talk on this topic isn’t just a little specious. I fully expect there to be further debate on this topic, with warring tribes fully armed with rationales and statistics supporting their views.

Summary

The change that is occurring in the social media/new media/digital communication/traditional (on and offline versions) environment is intense. In the time it has taken to produce this report, here is a minuscule selection of some of the topics and issues that have arisen:

• Doubts over Twitter’s efficacy for tactical/sales generating communication
• MySpace regaining momentum through Facebook’s perceived privacy failings
• The relentless ascent up the social media mountain of Foursquare
• Apple’s patenting of a Facebook/iPhone app.Who has time to keep up? Can we pay someone to filter this information for us? Social media is forcing the PR professional pay a heavy price for staying on the ball.

In regard to the summit, only a few of its themes have been flagged here. The rest are in the articles featured in the report. Download the report for free, share it around, RT it, get your contacts to subscribe to this blog.

And please let Glen Frost from Frocomm and I know what you think about the content and how we can provide more useful resources for you in the future to help you do your job as a professional communicator.

So, your call to action!

• Download your free FROCOMM New Media Summit 2010_Report
• Share it with your colleagues, peers and friends
• RT about it and get your contacts to subscribe to this blog.

Posts based on the report will be featured on this blog and on Blueblog in coming weeks. All comments, questions, observations and violent disagreements are welcome!

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite! PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

Related posts

• Free report: PR at war – opinion explosion at social media summit
• Strategic communication with Facebook
• Online content helping public relations manage reputation
• Social media communication generating trust

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Previously, in this series of posts on corporate website content and its strategic importance to PR and marketing professionals, I have discussed why public relations may be placing too much emphasis on social media instead of corporate website content. The next post will feature strategic and tactical insights and tips on this topic from a panel of global experts.

There is no guide, or overarching process, for how one should go about producing the content that goes on corporate websites…from strategic business planning, public relations or marketing perspectives. This is an almost unbelievable ‘informational gap’ due to the power that has been placed at corporate websites’ discretion due to the mind-bending capabilities of search engine optimisation (SEO).

So, this is my attempt to extend what discussions on this topic have occurred. (I haven’t found any of real substance along the communication/marketing line, but I am sure they must exist!).

There smatterings of information all over the place but, seemingly, no central resource that integrates all the parts; nothing that addresses the full picture of website content and social media and how you push ‘out’ to generate awareness of your new content. Or whether that is even an approach that will yield results.

Strategic approaches for corporate website content

Is the purpose of new website content constrained to Google spiders recognising it as new, and relevant to searches, thus ranking the content/web pages higher for organic searches?

Is the purpose of it limited to it being up-to-date, thus more likely to be relevant and useful to the needs of those searching for information? The implication of both these questions is that the content is only waiting for those who come to it – not content that is actually reaching out to those potentially interested in it.

Or is an option to repurpose (or just duplicate) it for other forms of communication like newsletters, e-newsletters, media programs, speaking programs et al, so it can be leveraged through those mediums?

But then, I presume, you can put Feedburner social media sharing options on each page (e.g. Digg, Reddit, Twitter etc) and thus give ‘human browsers’ an opportunity to easily share the content in a broadcast manner (and editorialised with their own comments, for that matter).

Hmmm, the lines between old-timey broadcast and new age social media sharing approaches are sometimes pretty arbitrary, aren’t they?

The face-off between social media, corporate websites and digital ‘traditional’ media

As for the face-off between social media, corporate websites and digital forms of traditional, hard copy media as to who wins the ‘most influential’ status, for me organisations have a real opportunity to win this battle. Or at least be a competitive participant.

If they are smart.

Smart, as in organisations recognise that all opinions count and all opinions/perspectives should be recognised.

Smart, as in recognise if they invest time and money into this opportunity then they have the opportunity to rank highly in organic searches, then get human browsers to advocate them.

Smart, as in providing content that is above and beyond being purely self-serving (i.e. helpful information that assists human browsers do whatever they want to do that is relevant to the organisation’s essential remit or purpose – no need to be too uptight here. People go for helpfulness, not brand handlers freaked out by the fool’s gold of brand frigging essences and other such bollocks marketing blather [um, apologies, a pet dislike going on here, obviously...]).

As strategic PR counsel Sean Williams pointed out, however, one of the great values of traditional media and social media (in fact, any opinion sources that are not from the organisation in question), is that they are 3^rd party opinion. Supposedly objective. Supposedly with nothing to gain. Supposedly this generates enhanced credibility for the organisation.

Essentially, I agree with this notion in most cases. It’s one of the reasons I espouse the forming of strategic alliances as a PR 101 approach.

But, as Sean himself points out, there is increasing doubt regarding the trustworthiness of both social media and traditional media sources. Everyone, it seems, has an axe to grind. If you know the source personally, sure, you know how much to trust and rely upon their perspectives.

But the web is a many-peopled world. Why should you trust people you will never meet and you will probably only have a web-relationship with? Sounds a bit, um, naive, does it not?

Corporate websites should be better at public relations

Organisations, of course, have the most resources to dedicate to their own profile (through marketing and/or public relations, for instance). They certainly should have the greatest motivation and focus on their own profile. And they should have the acumen and intelligence to take the broadest, most strategic and most realistic possible view of their place in their world.

So, really, they have no excuse to be beaten to the punch by other communication mechanisms when it comes to organic searches. Nor do they have any excuse not to form and/or enhance relationships (by both behaviour and communication) with their stakeholders.

Yet, they continue to allow this to occur because of a lack of recognition of the primacy of organic search and, very importantly, because they fail to recognise it is one thing to use technical SEO trickery to get highly ranked. It is quite another to get human browsers to like and advocate you because of the value-adding insights and resources you freely provide.

This is the telling factor in website content success. Is it making stakeholders do what you want them to do? Advocate you? Buy your products? Support your stance?

Resources is a key issue here. Traditional media is losing them. Social media never really had them; and though this is changing to some extent, we are talking an explosion of a chattering class that is great at accusations and sarcasm, but isn’t really setting the world on fire with providing scientifically reliable and assiduously generated proof for its observations, is it?

There may well come a point where the credibility of both sources of information (traditional and social media) lower themselves enough for organisations (through their corporate websites – which can lift themselves up in the credibility status) to be considered at least in the credibility ball park with them. It is an interesting dialectic. And it is certainly an opportunity for organisations that respect their stakeholders to gain a POD over their competitors that accelerates them along the road to long term, meaningful stakeholder relationships.

This, in turn, must inevitably lead to results such as meeting organisational objectives, increasing profits and minimising regulatory, media and political criticism/scrutiny.

Public relations value from corporate website content

So what is generated from getting positive results from providing corporate website content of value and utility to stakeholders/human browsers?

Authority. Respect. Leadership. And you know, getting the POD from this means a funny little thing called…‘increased sales’.

Looking for strategic communication answers on corporate website content

As there is not an authoritative guide to corporate website content and its implementation, I asked a question on LinkedIn and reached out to a number of digital, SEO, marketing and public relations professionals whose views and expertise I respect. Fortunately, many of them responded and their comments and insights are included in my next post on this issue.

Check out my next post on these issues to get some useful tips. But in the meantime, what strategic and tactical tips can you provide for marketing or public relations professionals on website content? And what did you think of the issues raised in the post and my views on them?

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog’s page, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

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In the rush to become social media experts, and to grab the largest slice of its revenue, responsibility and thought leadership pie, public relations pros are at risk of missing the main digital game: that of providing meaningful, resonant and useful content for corporate websites that is search engine optimised and customised to the needs of organisational stakeholders.

But, hey, make my day! Prove me wrong.

I raise this question (because this really is a question from me, rather than a full-blooded assertion) not as an out-and-out expert, but as someone who has observed, for the best part of this year, a swelling tide of – albeit fractured rather than concerted or integrated – commentary from the chattering digital/marketing classes on website content and its importance to communication and engagement between an organisation and its stakeholders.

Are we in living in fear of what is all of a sudden, gulp, dogma that says: do not challenge the deity that is social media!?

Of course, if website content and social media cannot co-exist peaceably, nay, profitably, then what hope is there for professional communicators?

So, over a couple of posts and with the insight and assistance of communication professionals – digital, SEO (search engine optimisation), marketing, public relations (oh such a delirious sisterhood) – I am going to explore a number of issues…

Public relations and providing website content

• Where is the thought leadership and guiding strategic hand in providing direction on what approaches should we take to generating corporate website content?
• Where does public relations fit into the dynamic of service providers involved in providing and delivering content for corporate websites?

Why is this an important topic?

David Meerman Scott says that corporate (or organisational – I use the terms interchangeably) websites are the new centre of the informational digital universe. He purports that when useful content (for organisational stakeholders) is placed there, and it has reasonable technical/coding SEO backing it up, then that is where those searching the web will go.

This is due to high organically-driven Google rankings, firstly, and secondly, that the content draws them back and they advocate it to others.

But there are others that purport social media is the centre of influence from a digital communication mechanism perspective. And there are yet others who say that the digital manifestation of traditional media, due to both its objectivity and professionalism (I know, try not to laugh), is the most influential mechanism.

Yes, we are getting reductive here. Different issues and different modes of communication need to be focused on, and utilised, for different stakeholder groups, but we are talking in general here.

Anyway, this is just why this corporate website content thing is important. This is not the point of this post.

Why content may indeed be king for public relations(hips)

The internet is, in many cases, the main (or at least an extremely important) means people use to find out information in numerous parts of the world. People will rarely look past the first half a dozen organically ranked search results.

Ipso facto, getting your preferred website (virtually) top of the list is critically important. So if you want your organisation to get a chance to influence stakeholders, then it needs to have great SEO.

How do you get great SEO?

1. The current school of thought says the primary influencer is website content
2. This must be supported by very good technical/coding/backend ITish type twiddling
3. Backlinking: getting other sites to link into your organisation’s site.

There are also a range of other factors that Jeff Bullas writes eloquently about, such as keyword use, diversity of link sources and trustworthiness of the domain linking to your site.

So, leaving the techie stuff to the backroom IT boys and girls, relevant content that is engaging for organisational stakeholders is a profound, fundamental priority for communication professionals. It needs to be updated regularly, as well, or at least the pages that are being visited do. Google’s search spiders get bored if this doesn’t happen and then your SEO rankings fall away into search oblivion…

Again I ask, so why hasn’t there been a stronger focus on the strategy behind website content design and generation by the public relations profession?

PR controlling influence…by sharing control

Organisations have an opportunity to get in front of, or at least be in the shooting match, with all the other sources of information out there (especially the digitally diseased ones). Meerman Scott pretty much states that if organisations are smart they can themselves become the new version of the old media – where you go to when you want up to date, interesting, compelling information about and relevant to an organisation.

You know: thought leadership, value-adding, free content (see Meerman Scott’s interview with Seth Godin and Tom Peters: making change..very cool) that is complementary to an organisation and DEFINITELY useful to its stakeholders.

This information needs to take a non-high handed approach. It cannot be condescending or obtuse. It must be customised to the micro-second attention span of digitally evolved (repurposed!?) human beings.

And guess what? Organisations are going to, at some stage, have to acknowledge perspectives (maybe even on themselves…) other than their own. If they can’t do that, then how do they expect their stakeholders to take them seriously..take them for real?

Now, if public relations is meant to be the profession that is queen of relationship building, where are we in this? Why are we ignoring this whilst lionising social media? Are websites not the hub and social media the spokes?

(Um, there have been a few variations on this one said before. I’m just not that clever. Although, generally, it is the blog positioned as the hub and other forms of social media as the spoke. I am thinking that now it is the corporate website as the hub, though the blog has an integral role to play.)

I’m going to talk more about this. As in what strategic approach should be taken? What are some tactical tips that are useful to integrate? And more. I have some real experts putting in their five cents worth, so join in and have your say. ‘Fess up: PR is on the junkheap at this game right now, isn’t it?

PS: I’d welcome you joining networks with me through my LinkedIn profile. Send me an invite!

PPS. And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email or RSS at the top of the blog, or Tweet about this post using the handy RT button, adding your own editorial two cents worth!

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There are a number of contenders for the most eye-rolling, can-you-believe-it dumb marketing and/or PR moment of 2009: loser marketers, the GFC and social media amongst them . But, thankfully, there have been plenty of inspirational examples of best practice professional communication too. Most importantly, what have we learnt during the year and how will it make us better communicators?

This post explores these dimensions with the input and assistance of two of the globe’s most astute public relations minds, Craig Badings and Sean Williams, both of whom provide plenty of insights on their own estimable blogs.

The ugly communication canards

Starting with the eye rolling, it never ceases to amaze me what some wankers in the advertising/marketing world come up with and their justifications for it. Australian readers will be familiar with the Toyota debacle, where a sexist, incest-implying entry into an advertisement competition was repeatedly justified by marketers, then needed to be pulled out of the fire by public relations experts.

Arguably even more devastating due to the impact it is literally having on people’s lives, is how one of Australia’s largest banks, Westpac, raised home loan interest rates way in excess of our Reserve Bank’s guidelines (unlike some of their competitors). This was bad enough (avarice, completely contradictory to the Westpac’s supposed – and now obviously shot to pieces – CSR positioning) but it was made worse by an ill-judged video using banana smoothies as an analogy for the excessive interest rate hike…unbelievable.

Craig Badings found the GFC tiresome (hey, and who can blame him! It got me retrenched, so I know what he means). “The impact of the GFC on communication service companies has had a profound impact in many respects,” he says.

“I am nervous that some of these will become de rigueur moving forward. For example, some companies have become extremely process driven in their approach to comms. This is all well and good when used to measure outputs and impact on ROI but when it comes as the expense of innovation and creativity I start fearing for the relationship. These approaches, if taken too far, inevitably kill the passion.”

Sean Williams, on the other hand, took the other major elephant in the room over the past year to task. “Crap social media claptrap. There is a ruling class in social media consulting who regurgitates the same old, tired canard of gobbeldy-gook that makes social media out to be the reinvention of the structure of society itself, declaring the End of News Media and accusing anyone who disagrees of being stupid, corrupt or worse.”

Examples of best practice public relations

On a more positive note, Craig looked back with satisfaction on a campaign he had worked on with law firm Henry Davis York. This…“resulted in the government of New South Wales settling with a family whose home was situated on an old radioactive waste site.”

Sean pointed out an excellent campaign by The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, called ‘Drawing Board’. “They are my client for measurement, so I can’t take credit for the single best and simplest explanation of financial regulation I’ve ever seen [unintentional banking and video connection noted...!]. They’ve also done a follow up video on the consumer price index…”

Getting better (at communicating) all the time

There is nothing that we all can’t get better at, but Sean and I would love to win more new business for our consultancies and I am sure Craig empathises with this as well. I question whether really profound, organisation-changing work can be done from the consultancy position, as opposed to working in-house in a PR capacity, but there are certainly plenty of exceptions to this position.

Sean, like most of us, had a big social media learning and ‘doing’ time in 2009. “Twitter and blogging make up a huge part of my day/week,” he says. “And the amount of information (some good, some not) I’ve gleaned from reading others in our field has been great.”

Plenty of us would have the tools to get better at our jobs by reading Craig’s book, Brand Stand; seven steps to thought leadership, which was published this year, whilst professional communication blogs by the likes of Karalee Evans and Trevor Young make an ongoing contribution to professional PR learning.

Incorporating the perspectives of others into my work and approach is always one of the more interesting and enriching dimensions of a professional life. Of course, embracing the views of others is analogous to public relations so it’s hypocritical not to bring such a mindset to our work.

And for 2010?

“I think more and more executives and communication professionals are beginning to understand the true power of good thought leadership and, if done properly, it’s ability to impact sales,” postulates Craig. “The biggest battle, however, is getting some people to understand that the focus of thought leadership doesn’t have to be on the product or service and that it is perfectly OK to ‘give away’ or share information and insights.”

The ‘giving away’ of information is similar to social media best practice. But social media still remains a war zone, according to Craig. “Many of the large corporates are still battling with the concept of engaging online. Speak to Dell, Walmart, Kryptonite locks, Pizza Hut and a host of others to find out just how important it is, if only as an early warning device for issues and a way to help manage crises.”

Sean says, “2010 could well be the Year of Measurement – that means doing long-delayed internal comms research, reducing dependence on ‘more more more’ in media relations in favour of better targeting and generally looking critically at how communication affects the business.”

It was reinforced for me during 2009, and I’ll be applying this in 2010 and beyond, how important flexibility and believing in yourself is. I was retrenched during 2009, I started my blog, I was forced to start my own business and now juggle a permanent role, my own business and this demanding blog baby.

An upside out of this was meeting, networking and collaborating with a wide range of public relations professionals, many of whom provided me with a great deal of support, inspiration and professional education. It reinforced to me what a rewarding, worthwhile profession I work in.

 So tell me, what were the highs, lows and ‘learnings’ of 2009 for you – and what do you think the professional business communication world will bring in 2010?

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Why blog about public relations? Well, for me it is because of the discipline’s inherent drama, aptitude for telling interesting stories and constant shape-shifting. Public relations, marketing and their many strategic (e.g. corporate and marketing communication etc) and tactical permutations are the grist for my mill.

The goals for this blog that I started mid-2009 have stayed pretty much the same: to expand knowledge on professional communication, especially public relations, and stimulate vigorous debate. Hopefully, an outcome of this is enhancing the conceptual and practical awareness and skills of communication professionals so they become better at their jobs.

A major motivating factor behind the blog’s inception was (and is) to raise awareness of the strategic importance of public relations to business and how its best practice application leads to a more equitable society.

At the core of the blog’s aesthetic is honesty and integrity; expressing opinions in a frank, sometimes provocative manner, that truly encapsulates the perspective of those, including myself, who use the blog as a platform and an opportunity for dialogue.

I view taking a sometimes ‘edgy’ approach, rather than a softly-softly mind-your-manners one, as being more likely to engage with professional communicators and involve them in the blog’s discussions.

Another factor was to help raise the profile of my ‘personal brand’ as part of a marketing strategy to get work after being a ‘GFC (woe is/was me…) retrenchment’ in April. This seems to have worked, as it definitely helped me gain a permanent role, as well as clients for my own business.

Since starting the blog in June, the blog has:

• featured the perspectives of numerous industry leaders
• had customised versions of its posts syndicated in Mumbrella, Frocomm’s PR Report and the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s e-newsletter and website
• provided a free, extensively resourced PDF report on crisis communication and social media, featuring the views of numerous PR thought leaders
• enhanced the vigour with which professional communication has been discussed in this country, adding to media and influential blogger commentary
• been ranked number one when undertaking a Google search for ‘public relations bloggers’ on 20 November (okay already, I admit Google must have been having a freak day).

The diversity of perspectives and voices the blog represents is analogous of social media and public relations, a key tenet of the latter being to represent the plurality of perspectives relevant to organisations. This is manifested not just in readers’ comments, but in posts that specifically discuss the views of others, either in the manner of ‘reviews’, interviews or guest posts. Topics covered include:

• market research
• crisis communication
• social media
• corporate social responsibility
• positioning.

There are a number of posts which encapsulate the blog’s aesthetic. They include

• the primacy of the two-way symmetrical communication model of public relations to the discipline’s best practice implementation
• how public relations is a critically important business discipline that is helping the world become a better place
• public relations’ responsibility to transform organisations so that they are more aligned with their stakeholders’ needs and wants
• the gratifying and inspirational aesthetic that underpins the culture of public relations.

It’s been a fun ride and has certainly enhanced my enjoyment of public relations.

Working in a consultancy environment, all too often you find yourself ensconced in the tactical rather than the strategic end of PR, way too frequently do you end up focusing on media relations alone and, finally, new business isn’t what I would call the sexiest characteristic of PR agency life (it’s not what I did a Goddamn Masters for, put it like that!)

So it’s fulfilling, at least, to discuss best practice and interesting dimensions of public relations whilst you are working to get that that killer client walk in the door…

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This is a guest post by Toni Brasch (below right)* – an experienced event management professional – of cicreate.

Having worked in the events industry for over 15 years, I have continually witnessed deep levels of engagement by audiences in events that companies run. I see this form of communication being a vital part of marketing, public relations, employee engagement and reward & recognition communication strategies.

When a major corporation was forced to cancel its internal reward and recognition event earlier this year due to bad press (they asked that in the middle of the GFC, how could such money be “wasted”), nothing was mentioned by the press about:

a)      the importance of recognising and rewarding employees, highlighting outstanding efforts and hence increasing morale, motivation and productivity

b)      the amount of money this pumps back into the events industry, helping small businesses to survive.

Engagement

With a captive audience, live events can communicate effectively, appealing on an emotional level like no other means. Most effective is integrating a pre and post-communication campaign into the event.

Pre-communication can be used to excite, update and educate. Post communication is used to reinforce the key messages and as a reminder of the impact at the event, whether it be through graphic (photos and video) or written means.

A live event is like going to the theatre – except we only get one chance to get it right – there’s no time for an ‘off’ night.

Communicating messages

There are various ways to communicate a message in events. A person who has an experience to share, who can take a company’s key messages or theme and integrate these into their own experience is, in fact, storytelling. Not in a fictional sense, but instead is bringing to life their experience and using an analogy to make the communication more tangible.

For example, keynote speakers, such as Glenn and Heather Singleman –the extraordinary couple who use their base jumping and climbing experiences to address such topics as fear, risk, challenge, planning and preparation – integrate video, graphics and verbal communication to make an impact like few can on their audience.

The audience, almost unknowingly, is processing the key messages by allowing the visual comparisons to do the work for them – next time they are faced with any of their own challenges they can remember the tools that these people use and apply them to their own situation.

Being in a live environment where there are people to share and discuss, have questions answered in open forums and workshops to consolidate ideas, allows for immediate feedback and the ability to put into place action plans for ‘real life’, back-at-the-office work.  

Team building

Team building is another effective way of communicating messages and improving on weak areas within a business. How many employees only know the people within a five metre radius of their work area? How many times do they go into the shared kitchen and find themselves making coffee with a ‘colleague’ they know nothing about?

The days of the social club are ever-decreasing, with family commitments and personal priorities minimising the interest. Therefore, it has become more reliant on the employer to create the feeling of ‘teaming’.

The ‘90s were full of climbing ropes, balancing on tight ropes, untangling people from others and trivia games. The new century brought with it Cooking Schools, Treasure Hunts, Murder Mysteries and technologically driven Mountain Climbs. These experiential team building programs can now play an important part in building an internal event strategy, ensuring the person in the kitchen next time has a new connection with his/her colleague and encouraging them to engage in conversation – business or personal.

So back to the ‘waste of money’! If a company stops communicating in a live environment, stops rewarding and recognising employees in front of their peers, relying on emails and newsletters to distribute key messages, then how do we inspire, excite and motivate our people – the key component of any business?

What is your experience of events that have been run to engage and motivate employees? How did they impact on your relationship with the organisation and/or your commitment to your work? What about your colleagues? How did they react? Did you undertake any formal market research to calibrate the impact of the event(s)? What place do events have in employee and external public relations and marketing strategies?

[*After beginning her working life in the theatre as an actor and stage manager, Toni completed a Diploma in Theatre at Sydney’s renowned Ensemble Theatre. Discovering that there was a need to put food on her plate, she swapped acting for a diverse career in hospitality, including management of restaurants in London and Sydney as well as marketing and function co-ordination.

Discovering her passion for event production and learning everything she could by working within the industry for six years, Toni established Toni Brasch Event Management (TBEM) in 1998, leading a team of dedicated and creative people to produce successful events for an array of corporate clients in finance, telecoms, FMCG and travel. TBEM was acquired in 2007 by cievents, the event’s division of Flight Centre Limited, where she continues her role as an Executive Producer in their production division – cicreate. Toni can be contacted at toni.brasch@cicreate1.com]

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This is a guest post by Shirli Kirschner* – mediator, facilitator, trainer and coach – of Resolve Advisors.

In a world of undifferentiated products, there is an easy point of difference that many organisations don’t, won’t or can’t deliver on: fixing mistakes.

Managing mistakes is a way to demonstrate credibility and put some substance behind the hype. It is the equivalent of the friend who is there for the crisis.

A good adviser can assist in ensuring the right questions are asked by management. He or she can also help ensure that systems operate flawlessly to keep the hard earned customer, giving great grist to the gossip mill through valuable feedback the customer will provide to his or her peer group.

An angry consumer is an opportunity not a threat. But the anger needs to be tackled holistically and strategically. Does your organisation, or do your clients, have a reliable and rewarding process (and culture) in place for responding to mistakes and complaints?

Brand divorce – 1#

Recently, a friend of mine from mothers group was telling me about her trek up to a major retailer of electrical equipment in Bondi Junction, two kids, one on each hip, to return a faulty radio. The assistant refused to refund on the grounds that her receipt was five weeks old.

The assistant thought it was reasonable to obtain a refund within a month. My friend argued that she thought five weeks was reasonable. She then told them that as there was room for disagreement, their sign needed to be more explicit.

After calling the manager and with the kids in noise mode, faced with the argument, they then refunded her money.

Her return wasn’t within a month – with two young kids she hadn’t opened the radio’s box within that time.

Hot and bothered, with stressed kids and her refund, she walked out with a story to regale her girlfriends with.

I went to buy a camera the next day and steered clear of that store…

Brand divorce – 2#

I bought blinds from a store in Randwick. Alas, after getting the fabric wrong the hanging was worse. “We will call you back and see what to do…”

Three days later and no-one had even called to discuss how to fix the problem… one week later their technical person came sans appointment, shook his head and said…’ this is a mess and I will need to check when I can get back to you.

No solution just a shake of the head. I will never use them again and neither will any of my friends.

Brand love – more than a one night stand

I fly (in planes…) regularly enough to be a high ranking loyalty member, flying nationally on discount tickets. I am your typical small business consumer… I miss planes, book the wrong days, have my card demagnetise…

The other day I missed a plane – big time. I was still in a meeting when it began to board. I called Virgin and the always happy operator said, “What is your story…” “l was one and a half hours late getting in this morning and I haven’t caught up,” I said.

I expected to have to buy another ticket. I was stressed.

“That’s a bit stressful for you – what flight were you on this morning?”, she asked, without missing a beat. I told her. She checked: “Well, I can’t take the stress out of the day after we were so late but I can apologise, put a note on your file and ensure that you can get on any plane when you get to the airport. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I went from frazzled to relieved. At that point I would have shouted “I love Virgin” from the rooftops and beyond. After seven years of loyal service to another airline – I moved over and joined the Virgin Lounge and loyalty program. Millions of dollars of advertising could not have impressed me as much as that.

Her interpersonal skills were excellent (great active listening with no sugar coating) and her problem solving skills were on the money. More impressive was the fact that Virgin management had empowered their front line staff to make a decision like that. To me, that is true branding.

I want to belong to an organisation like that. I just need to think through the organisations that I deal with regularly. The ones that I am loyal to are the ones that know how to handle not just the good times – but the bad ones too. There are a few: Sebel Melbourne, Fratelli Fresh in Waterloo and Circulon cookware.

Circulon replaced the glass lid to my pot, honouring a lifetime guarantee when I sent them a photo to show it had shattered (no receipt required). Circulon’s attitude to my shattered lid really sold me on the concept that this is a pot for life. I just bought another two. It feels like good value at the price if I have it that long!

Up, up and away

Companies spend billions on brand awareness because they want consumers to be seduced into buying whatever the illusion is: luxury, love, success… Companies often forget that the consumer relationship is not only about getting the consumer in; it is also about how you manage the inevitable mistakes. Complaint handling is part of the ‘taste’ of the brand, particularly in service industries.

Many companies get public relations people in to manage their disasters. Very few companies think to build a brand around customer complaints or how they address everyday glitches.

They take this approach at their peril. A dissatisfied consumer makes a noise. Sometimes loud, sometimes quietly. But that memory lasts a long time and the word of mouth damage can be devastating.

As for repeat business…fugeddaboutit.

Key strategic questions that need to be answered include:

• How do we want the complaints service to look and feel?
• What is the process for dealing with complaints; is it managed by a discrete department or frontline staff?
• What are the company’s values and service guarantee around that? How will it be fed into the way that bonuses are calculated and staff remunerated? And, for that matter, position descriptions?
• How will it be measured? Will it be transparent – promoted internally and externally, or just quietly delivered?
• How will the value of it be represented in the triple bottom line (financial, management, relationship)?

Do you have similar experiences of organisations treating your complaints poorly? How did it impact on your relationship with the organisation? From a branding and reputation perspective, do you agree with Shirli? What are your thoughts?

[Shirli (right) works with organisations and individuals to effectively manage conflict and build consensus. This includes the mediation of disputes, facilitation of group process, strategic planning and capacity building. Her goal is to do meaningful work with individuals and organisations who understand that good process, seamlessly executed and invisible, is the key to delivering superior outcomes.]

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I want to learn something of interest and/or value from any blog, but particularly from those of a public relations or marketing bent, which are the fields I work in. But there are a plethora of these sorts of blogs out in the wilds of the web, so I thought I’d pick out five of my current favourites and explain why I find value in them.

To interest me, a blog is going to have to tell me something I didn’t know, provide a fresh perspective on a topic or notion and/or explain an idea I am familiar with in a lively, engaging manner.

When it comes to value, I want to be able to apply what I am learning in a professional context. I don’t need to be able to run out and do it right now. And it doesn’t mean it needs to be a tangible tactical approach. It could be a particular perspective that, over the longer term, will influence the way I practice public relations and marketing and/or the counsel I provide to clients, colleagues and employers.

Other aspects I look for in blogs that help determine whether or not I will value them include:

• how well they are written, including whether they are written in an online-friendly manner
• how frequently they are updated – the rule of thumb I apply to my own blog is that it needs to feature an update of utility at least once a week (more is better but, hey, most of us have other jobs here!!)
• whether they are challenging the status quo. Maintaining the party line is pointless for me. I want to be surprised and be prompted to rethink my own opinions and approaches.

Bearing all that in mind, I recommend you make a habit of checking out the following.

Communication Ammo

Sean Williams, a professional communicator and budding academic, runs this show. We’ve had a number of conversations about two-way symmetrical communication and its place in the ‘real world’ and I always find them of value.

Sean is a generous and highly intelligent writer. He likes his theory – the breakfast of champions – but he is always cognisant of its place in business. An example of this is his use of case studies and discussions on social media, obviously the hot spot of contemporary public relations practice.

justanotherpr

Karalee Evans is a hip and humourous (have I said that I like bloggers who don’t take themselves uber-seriously?) PR blogger who provides plenty of amusing anecdotes and goes to a LOT of trouble with her posts. She might be the most sophisticated PR blogger from a multi-media perspective that I have come across.

I have great fears for her social media addiction – do you live on Twitter, Karalee?? – but this is doubtless one reason why she is one of the more insightful commentators on the social media-public relations nexus. She is no strategic ingénue, either.

Marketing Is Us

Marketing Is Us is a consultancy so I’m not sure who does all the posts, but they are generally interesting and useful. Perhaps some incredibly sophisticated marketers might turn their nose up at the blog, but for me it works.

And yes, I know this is a marketing and not a public relations-specific blog. But my attitude is that marketing and public relations, firstly, utilise the same tools at times and, secondly, are inter-related and can learn a great deal from each other.

Marketing, social media, all things digital and advertising – from a strategic, tactical and social (as in, society) perspective – are discussed. The layout of the blog is nice and clean and their use of various forms of media to enliven their posts is good.

Zakazukha Zoo

Matt Granfield – social media marketer extraordinaire – is the main man here. The quality of his writing and insights is impossible to ignore.

He has contributed some excellent posts to Marketing magazine (such as this one on finding social media influencers) which he has somewhere on his own site. I counsel paying attention to what he has to say. His spiels are just as relevant to experienced or ‘baby-steps’ marketers and social media ‘activists’ (by which I mean those who use the mechanism(s) professionally).

Too marketing oriented for you? Do both PR and marketing folk utilise social media? Care to learn something from an expert? Let me introduce you to…Matt Granfield.

Teaching PR

Karen Russell, who runs this blog, is an associate professor (PR and media history) at the University of Georgia. There are three main reasons why I recommend this blog:

• It highlights Karen’s favourite PR-relevant blogs on an ongoing basis (often of interest, so it acts as a sort of short cut to quality)
• It takes a good hard look at social media and its relevance to the practice of public  relations
• There are intelligently written, wide ranging conversations on a number of relevant PR issues, undertaken in both an academic, theoretical sense and a practical, ‘real world’ sense.

The bonus site! – Thoughtleadership strategy

Okay, so it’s six favourite PR blogs. This is Craig Badings’ blog. Craig is an ex-colleague from Ogilvy who is a senior corporate and financial comms strategist with Cannings. His blog is pretty new but its up among my top picks already because of the incisiveness and utility of its content.

Craig is big on thought leadership and has just published a book on the topic. He has a passion for thought leadership and its relevance to brand communication and businesses’ bottom lines. He tells me the blog is an ongoing commitment and I think we should all hope that proves to be the case. A must read for all ‘levels’ (including students) of those in the public relations and marketing industries.

Others

To finish, whilst I think the following blogs are great, they don’t always meet the criteria for favourite PR blogs I have noted above, but are still very much worth checking out:

• PR Conversations
• PR Blogger
• Stellar*
• Jeffbulla’s blog
• PR Warrior.

I’d be interested to hear how you rate these blogs and/or what you would like to read/see on public relations-relevant blogs. Also, are there other PR blogs that you rate highly?

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There are multiple benefits to being a member of an industry association. And not just for yourself. Being a member also benefits your professional peers – especially those who are less experienced – and the (relevant) profession itself.

Importantly, and this is intrinsically salient for public relations professionals more than most other professions, being a member of an industry association is at least partially a selfless, sharing, positive act.

All about me

Okay, so let’s start with you, the centre of your world…

Being a member of an industry association is an indication to others that you take your profession, and by extension your career, seriously. It says you:

1. care about your profession
2. value continuing professional education
3. are in touch with contemporary developments in your field.

This engenders respect from potential direct employers and recruiters. It may even be the difference between you getting a role and not getting a role. Let’s face it, who would you rather employ, someone who ticks points 1, 2 and 3 above or someone who doesn’t?

Getting a job (and even building a career) is a competition. Are you a winner or a loser?

Any good industry association will have the continuing professional education of its members as close to its highest priority. There is a good reason for this: unless you keep up to date with developments in your profession then you will not be the best possible practitioner you can be.

Your potential, simply put, will not be realised without ongoing professional education. It’s your choice. What makes most sense to you?

In the public relations context, the Public Relations Institute of Australia provides education to its members in the form of seminars, conferences and e-newsletters, whilst the Australian chapters (NSW and Victoria) of the International Association of Business Communicators provide seminars, discussion papers and a magazine. Both have a library of resources accessible to members.

Being a member provides you with a plethora of networking opportunities. Why is this useful? Well, it provides an opportunity to promote yourself: the ‘Me brand’. You can:

• meet potential employers
• meet recruiters
• meet peers who can tell you about new opportunities
• learn from your peers and event presenters
• put forward your own ideas to engage with and impress people (thought leadership), potentially leading to new opportunities and professional relationships. These may not benefit your career in the short term, but that is irrelevant if you are in your industry for the long term.

Industry associations, as noted above, communicate with their members in a number of ways. By exhibiting thought leadership through articles and/or seminar presentations you contribute, you are once again adding equity to your ‘Me brand’.

The more individuals that join an industry association the stronger it can be. The more funds it has allows for the generation of more frequent and higher quality resources. This is to your and your peers’ collective benefit.

These resources often include recruitment services and mentoring services (and whilst both help practitioners get jobs, the latter helps enhance practitioners’ ability and self-esteem).

The power of numbers can also help industry associations gain greater respect for the industry through forums such as the media and government (the latter helping impact on regulation). The former, in the instance of public relations, should help raise the profile of the industry and increase respect for it, thus potentially making those who work within it prouder of, and happier to work within, their profession.

Another ancillary outcome of larger numbers in associations can be reduced prices for products and services for members that the associations can negotiate.

(Just for the record, I think the PRIA and IABC in Australia both do a shithouse job of gaining greater respect for the industry through the media and government relations. It is their major failing, as much as I advocate being a member of one or both of them for the plethora of reasons enumerated in this post.)

The final benefit I can think of to an individual for being an industry association member is being able to enter industry awards. If you do well in these there are a number of potential upshots:

• Your self-esteem is enhanced
• Your resume is enhanced, which leads to more rewarding roles
• Your understanding of what best practice entails is enhanced and, if you use this knowledge wisely, you will become more proficient at your job.

All about your peers

Public relations, as a professional discipline, is analogous to leadership. Being a member of an industry association is taking a leadership position. It says you care about your profession and want to make a difference.

It says you are, at least to some degree, involved.

We make a greater difference when we are part of a team. It doesn’t mean individual brilliance or perspectives cannot be exhibited outside the confines of the team, but it will enhance the impact of both the individual and the team/group initiatives if both exist to their optimum level.

Being a leader, in this context, also says to younger and/or less experienced practitioners that you care about the profession and that attempting to excel is the only way to achieve the best possible outcomes. Not being a member of an industry association says you are self-centred to the detriment of the industry as a whole.

This is a particularly relevant perspective for those who are more experienced in their profession. It’s my belief that the greater individual benefits of being a member of the PRIA and the IABC are for those with less professional experience, but for the reasons I have just espoused, it is equally important for those who have been around the block to ensure they are members of an industry association.

Conclusion

There is an attitude amongst some people that they are too cool to join an industry association. This is a deluded perspective. The opposite is the truth.

I have benefited considerably from being a member of the PRIA, especially when I was a less experienced professional. I was mentored through PRIA auspices, have learnt a lot through events it has held, have met many professional peers who I have learnt from and formed rewarding professional and personal relationships with. I have also used its resources to help set up a freelance business.

Sure, being an industry association member can be frustrating at times, but it is a low-cost way of contributing to the industry as a whole and giving yourself opportunities for proficiency and career enhancement. It is up to each individual how passive or active they make their membership.

 What are industry associations doing right and wrong from your perspective? Where is there room for improvement? Please, share your thoughts.

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