Public relations and managing reputation

Fires and flu: what a year. Worst of all for those suffering from the cataclysms. But a real challenge for public relations professionals working hard to inform and help the community. This post features insights shared by two of Australia’s preeminent public relations practitioners at Frocomm’s Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009.

Whether through addressing a flu pandemic or the cataclysm that we know all too well in Australia, bushfires, the same principles of crisis management apply for public relations professionals. Some of them include building trust in an organisation, using your employees as ‘advocating communicators’ and putting human safety at the top of the priority pyramid. Remember, as well, “trust is harder to maintain in a social media environment.”

Insightful tips provided by public relations heavyweight experts at the Frocomm Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009 related to specific social media tools that are of utility: ‘dark’ websites, videos, forums and Twitter are discussed.

Public relations’ tactical, hands-on tips for using social media in a crisis.

An organisation should customise stakeholder communication in respect of, and in response to, stakeholders’ core values. This means aligning an organisation with societal and stakeholder expectations. This is often driven by CSR and thought leadership which, when strategically applied, will lessen the impact of a crisis and lead to a faster ‘reputational’ recovery post-crisis. All of which will be enhanced by the involvement of a best practice public relations professional.

A crisis communication plan that does not include social media is incomplete and seriously flawed. This was the overarching key message to come from Frocomm’s 2nd Annual Crisis Communication & Social Media Summit 2009. A free report summarising the summit content is available here [link].

Here are five excellent public relations and marketing blogs where professionals can learn plenty of interest and value. They tell me things 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.

Social media allows for issues to be identified, monitored and managed extremely quickly, as well as real-time stakeholder interaction and relationship enhancement. But it also facilitates bad news spreading like wildfire. These fiery themes were all-pervasive at the recent Frocomm crisis communication and social media summit and are discussed here.

Marketers are often much better than public relations professionals at thinking, and acting, laterally about the range of weapons in the communication professional ‘arsenal’ that can be used to achieve objectives. Their activity can be more business relevant; use evaluation more effectively; use databases to greater effect and more.

Looking at social media as both an awareness and fund raising tool among not-for-profits (NFPs). Key reasons for this are social media’s: Interactivity, mass communication/reach, ‘instantaneousnous’, anonymity and its transactional dimension.