Best practice public relations is consistently characterised by three crucial elements – strategy, rigour and creativity. Rigour ensures intellect, muscle and consistency; creativity is where it starts, with solutions to challenges and answers for opportunities; whilst strategy is both the roadmap and the puppeteer, ensuring cute thinking and tactical skills are applied in a manner which optimises the capabilities of both.

You can actually practice pretty good – and sometimes even great – PR by applying just one or two of this power play triumvirate. Examples include:

• mind bending creativity applied to a product launch which captures the zeitgeist and transforms an opportunity into an occurrence which galvanises its target audience
• a consistent, professional but thoroughly dry approach to providing information to, and interacting with, a community impacted on by infrastructure development
• where multiple communication strands are woven together in a complex manner which also features customised messages and information on essentially the same topic to different target audiences.

But to achieve really great PR, and to do it consistently, you are far better offer to get strategy, rigour and creativity working together. You are taking an unnecessary risk by not applying this approach.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

An interesting paradox of creativity is that rarely does it manifest itself without taking a degree of risk. Creativity involves departing from the norm – the ‘shock of the new’ – and through doing this it can galvanise, alienate or bemuse. Well, at least you won’t die wondering, though the client may not be satisfied with such a summation of a campaign…

Science in public relations

Public relations is a social science. And just like physical sciences like physics, excellent results generally come from using educated creativity. How does this manifest itself in PR? Well, not that much different from materials or some other form of the physical sciences:

• You undertake research
• You postulate (i.e. you apply creative thinking)
• You test your postulations
• You refine your approach based on research
• You implement (using the best stratagem you can formulate)
• You succeed.

Undertaking some form of market research is, therefore, a necessity in public relations that is seeking to achieve the best possible result. Guess work doesn’t cut it.

Budgetary issues always make undertaking research an issue, but inexpensive forms of qual or quant research can be undertaken and, often, there will be existing research which can be used to help refine a creative approach to help make it more effective.

And of course, without undertaking some form of market research prior to a campaign beginning, you have absolutely no way known of identifying how effective the campaign is, including what elements it contains helped or didn’t help the campaign.

Whether in-house or in consultancy, research, benchmarking and evaluation are critically important steps in public relations. it’s one way of proving to senior management and/or clients the value of PR.

Creativity in PR

Here are three ways in which creativity can manifest itself in PR:

• Visuals – images, video, Prezi/PowerPoint presentations
• Text
• Concepts and the manner in which concepts engage target audiences.

Rigour in PR

Three ways in rigour manifests itself in PR are:

• Testing creativity before it is applied. This can occur through a pilot program or market research (a small and qual approach will often suffice)
• Staying within scope and budget in the application of creativity
• The consistency of application of the approach. Paradoxically, variations of application for different target audiences may also be appropriate. Are you tough enough to deal with this and do it consistently?

PR strategy

Characteristics and manifestations of taking a strategic approach to PR are many. The include aspects like the following:

• The timing of the roll out of the strategy and what tactical elements hit target audiences when
• Using 3^rd parties to aid in organisational credibility
• Applying thought leadership to assist in positioning, differentiation and stakeholder relationship enhancement
• Forming and leveraging strategic alliances
• Making a decision on which aspects of an organisation, issue, product or service to focus upon
• How much different points of view on a organisation, issue, product or service are recognised and discussed by an organisation.

What about you – where have you applied rigour, creativity and/or strategy in a PR campaign? What worked for you and what didn’t work? Are any of these three elements poorly applied in PR, do you think? Why and where?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Many people fail to perceive the seriousness of public relations; how it provides balance to discussions and often contributes insights into complex, multi-layered issues that, otherwise, would not have been generated. This takes place just as much in issues and crisis management, which might be the immediate domain that comes to mind, as it does it reputation building, positioning and differentiation which are, generally speaking, more proactive kinds of strategic communication.

In fact, consider some of the terms just mentioned:

• Issues management
• Crisis management
• Reputation building
• Positioning
• Differentiation.

We are talking very serious elements of business, underlining the heft and depth of PR.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please go to the PR blog homepage and share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Which takes me back to my original premise, that many underestimate the importance of public relations and often consign it to product and service promotion through quirky coverage in the media. Funnily enough, it takes a lot of hard, insightful and creative work to deliver this ‘quirky’ (yeah yeah, and maybe even flippant or superficial) media coverage, so even by mentioning this I’m at risk of underselling the intelligence and strategy which underpins this aspect of PR. Oh well.

Crisis management and serious public relations

If there is one surefire way into the board room, it’s through helping organisations managing a crisis. Public relations brings a number of important skills to the table in situations such as this.

One is analysis of stakeholder (including media) discussion and sentiment. Very, very importantly, this includes the anticipation of stakeholder discussion, sentiment and behaviour. This is important as it allows an organisation to get in front of potential reputation-damaging activity.

PR is good at this because of its boundary spanning characteristic (meaning it has learnt to understand the mindset and behaviour of stakeholders) which is underpinned by the market research which any good PR operative will insist is undertaken. Not everyone realises what an important issues management action market research is.

Another is PR’s ability to customise communication to distinct and discrete stakeholder groups. This may involve focusing on certain elements of an issue for particular people and/or communicating to them on the back of different communication mechanisms (e.g. social media, face-to-face, phone calls, stories in the media).

Inherent in this are the interpersonal, verbal communication skills of PR practitioners. This is another underestimated skills PR pros have. It is not easy to speak with a CEO, then an editor, then a grassroots community member of a NGO, then an irate senior citizen – all within the space of 30 minutes. To undertake this communication without condescension; with honesty, with clarity and with self-assuredness takes considerable experience and expertise.

A third element, which echoes some points above, is it takes intelligence, insight and bravery to pick up on an incipient issue that might just about be ready to go all nuclear and put it in front of the CEO and say, hey buddy, here’s a little device which is just about ready to blow up in your face. These are critically important steps in issues management.

Seriously, let’s tell a story here through PR

Generally speaking, journalists are traditionally grumpy, prickly bastards, always wanting to have a go, focus on the negative and are dead keen on promoting conflict. As such, they are diametrically opposed to PR professionals as we aim to achieve consensus, peace and effective working relationships etc. Conflict is only useful for us a means to achieving the best possible end; for journalists it’s a mud bath they like to wallow in.

Oh perhaps I digress a little. But only a little. I was setting the scene for the vital necessity of public relations to tell stories – articulate narratives, if you will – to stakeholders, as the media are so often set on articulating an alternative approach which either barely resembles the true story or deliberately or ineptly fumbles along with a fulsomely untrue story.

Part of the challenges for journalists these days, too, of course, is their dwindling number and, as a result, the diminishing time with which they have to put together professionally researched stories. Further upsetting their equilibrium is that social and other forms of digital media moves way quicker than they are generally able to. Not only does this mean someone else has beaten them to their – potentially – exclusive punch but that this inability to win the exclusivity race means, over time, a lessening of eyeballs for their ‘product’ and, hence, a lessening of advertising dollars coming their particular media outlet’s way.

And I hate to tell you, but without advertising dollars, the journalist’s job is at risk, so this is yet another addition to that snowball momentum driving journalists from their perches.

The underpinning driving elements of the stories that PR pros tell, and/or the factors that shape them, are those three key elements PR does so well in providing:

• Reputation building
• Positioning
• Differentiation.

But that’s a story for another day. Do join me then, won’t you!

Are you in PR and do you take the profession seriously? Do you think everyone else does? What is it important that PR professionals provide to organisations, their stakeholders and society as a whole?

If you found this post of value, please go to the PR blog homepage and share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Don’t fool yourself into thinking public relations is not about the application of power. In fact, it is almost PURELY about the application of power and, therefore, about politics itself (i.e. ‘social relations involving authority or power’). A fundamental question every PR practitioner should be asking themselves in their work, then, is how should I be counselling my organisation(s) to apply the power at their disposal?

Clearly, this has both moral and ethical dimensions. Some of the questions and challenges inherent in this dialectic include:

• the nature and amount of information an organisation is willing to share with its stakeholders
• the ‘slant’ or ‘weighting’ or, heaven forbid, ‘spin’ an organisation will apply to the information it is sharing
• whether the information is part of a process of dialogue or it is simply (only?) being broadcast
• what is being sought through the communication process? Is it awareness raising, perception/opinion changing, the changing of behaviour or, and here’s a killer, is it about the release of information or the communication process taking place purely because of internal political reasons?

By the way, if you find this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

The ‘nature’ of public relations information

On a day-to-day basis we release information to our organisation’s stakeholders. Decisions on the nature of the information we release are, in themselves, political decisions. Examples of information and communication mechanisms can include:

• information intended for the media to feature
• images
• text
• direct mail newsletters/emails
• local event sponsorship and/or participation
• social media.

Decisions related to this are extremely political because they will impact on whether:

• the information reaches the stakeholders
• the information is articulated in a manner likely to interest – and prompt – stakeholders to seek to understand or digest the information (in other words, not boring people to virtual death)
• the information has been articulated in a manner which stakeholders are actually capable of understanding.

An example of the decisions PR pros need to make is whether to use images in the communication process. It may be that some stakeholders are poorly educated, for instance, or come from a background different to the dominant culture in which the communication takes place. In this case, to be successful in the communication process it may be the use of images will successfully convey meaning to stakeholders.

• The choice of whether to use images or not is a political one
• Does your organisation really want these stakeholders to understand the issue or not?
• Where will your organisation choose to allocate its budget?

How much information an organisation releases is, similarly, a political decision. This goes towards the issue of transparency (as well as the previously stated potential outcome of boring the brains out of stakeholders).

The ‘s’ word in PR politics

It is natural for an organisation to want to position itself as favourably as possible in the minds and hearts of its stakeholders. You can hardly criticise them for that.

This influences the way in which they choose to articulate themselves on issues. This is all political decision making. But where it becomes scary is if an organisation crosses a line to articulate itself in a manner which is untruthful or stretches the truth into the murky area of spin.

Where the boundaries of this ‘murk’ begin and end is generally very vague, though often it’s blatantly obvious, too. In the long term, telling porkies will not help create sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its stakeholders. And it sure as hell will not foster a healthy organisational culture.

I can’t imagine working in the service of tobacco companies, for instance. How they and their employees and service providers justify themselves is completely beyond me. Having said that, I’ve worked in the service of one or two organisations I’m not particularly proud of. We all have our failings.

And in a quirky sort of way, the attitude we apply to our public relations roles, or any role in life (including mounting a moral high horse, like I’m doing here) is a political decision, too:

• Do we have the courage of our convictions?
• What impact on others will speaking boldly on sensitive subjects have?
• Are we making a difference by being frank – and that includes the difference it makes to ourselves by actually speaking out?

Dialogue and broadcast in public relations

There is no hard and fast rule, as it all depends on the issue and the stakeholders, but dialogue is an approach more likely to lead to knowledge increase, as well as perception and behavioural change, than broadcast.

Without going all two-way symmetrical (let’s leave it at one-way symmetrical, shall we?):

• Dialogue means the stakeholder is physically responding and engaging with the communication process which, just like using a tennis racquet instead of reading a book about how to use it, means the brain and emotions are exercising their faculties in a ‘physical’ manner
• Dialogue means the organisation is responding to the stakeholder and, one would hope anyway, customising communication to the unique characteristics of the stakeholder
• Dialogue between an organisation and a stakeholder will prompt a change in the thinking of both parties (and potentially even their approaches/behaviour) because of this actual ‘physical’ engagement (though it could be a positive or negative change)
• Dialogue will most probably prompt the stakeholder to discuss the issues and the dialogue itself with others, thus creating a ‘viral’ effect for the communication. Similarly, if the organisation isn’t discussing the interaction further internally then there isn’t much point in undertaking the dialogue at all.

Communicating to be seen to be communicating

A further dimension of this topic I don’t recall having seen as part of any discourse (including academic discourse) is about the release of information, or the communication process, occurring purely because of internal political reasons.

In other words, communication being undertaken for the sake of it being seen to be undertaken.

We’ve all seen crap media releases put together for little reason other than to stroke an individual organisational powerbroker’s ego or an outrageously ignorant belief that it is necessary to undertake communication because that is what ‘one does’ in situations such as this.

It’s sad, it’s unprofessional, it’s pointless. But it does occur. Just look at politicians’ media release pages. How often do they really have something meaningful to say?

What do you think about the issues flagged in the post? Do you have any further points to add to the political implications of public relations? Am I overstating the case of how PR is a political discipline and very much about the discourse on, and application of, power? What experiences have you had in relation to the use of power in PR you can share?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

The application of thought leadership as a best practice public relations tactic is a given. But intelligence, insight, analysis and the construction of admirable, theoretical paths forward is a Pyrrhic victory if all it amounts to is talk, text and a contribution to reputation enhancement. Actions and behaviour are far more meaningful manifestations of leadership. It is this that will lead to best-possible reputation enhancement, not rhetoric.

So is public relations failing by placing such an emphasis on thought leadership? Should we be focusing more on stimulating organisational action and, by extension, organisational and stakeholder behavioural change?

These thoughts were prompted by an article in The Monthly, which discusses the ‘failure of narrative’. It delves into the commonality of Obama and Ronald Reagan. Both have emphasised the ‘narrative arc’, the telling of stories. But, just as in PR, narrative (and thought leadership) is cheap. Taking action is the meat in the burger.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Intellectual acuity is not enough to constitute effective leadership (unless you are an academic or a philosopher); leadership is about putting those thoughts into action; showing mettle, the courage of your convictions. It is not even necessarily about getting a result in this context. It is about showing the way through deeds not discussion.

The failure of public relations

By focusing on thought leadership, is public relations giving up the fight? I ask this in light of the remit of PR pros to instigate and facilitate change, both from an organisational and stakeholder behavioural perspective.

Of course, many in PR do not subscribe to the primacy of two-way symmetrical communication, which is what underpins this line of thinking. Those that do not subscribe to this notion can safely exonerate themselves from needing to do more than create heightened knowledge and enhanced perceptions of organisations.

It doesn’t seem a great leap, however, to assert that without an organisation willing to evolve its operations to be more in line with stakeholder expectations, to some degree at least, then it can hardly expect its stakeholders to evolve theirs to the satisfaction of the organisation.

Where thought leadership can make a difference

PR professionals will always find themselves in situation where they cannot apply the ‘ideal’ form of their discipline. Working in agencies is an obvious example.

Rarely are PR agencies commissioned to provide holistic advice and support. Mostly it is related to discrete programs. And even if there are a number of programs being implemented for a single client, it is highly unusual to be given the ‘keys to the kingdom’ to piece them together into a holistic approach.

This is not to say strategic advice along the lines of two-way symmetrical communication, including an organisation changing its approach, cannot be ingrained within distinct communication programs (and advice given by the PR consultant, for that matter).

If an organisation wants to become involved in a sponsorship program, for instance, the nature of its investment can be influenced by feedback from its target audiences (including its employees). They may, for instance, feel it is a good organisational fit to invest in education, disadvantaged communities, children’s’ sport or some other singular area.

When working in-house, the impact of PR on organisational operations and culture will depend significantly on how close to the top of an organisation the senior PR person sits. If the counsel of this professional is not sought or not held in high regard, then thought leadership might be about as good as the PR pro can get.

Better than nothing, but woe betide the organisation that speaks fine words but is, essentially, shown to be hypocritical in their application.

This can occur literally, in the sense the specifically espoused thought leadership is not actioned by the organisation; or it can occur by implication. By this I mean an admirable thought leadership position, and a highly respected reputation can be sought – and gained – in general, but if there are instances where the ‘spirit’ of this thought leadership and respectability is not manifested in organisational behaviour in non-thought leadership topic related areas, then once again it will be a reputation fail.

And when organisations fail and their reputation plummets, pray tell who are the first professionals brought into play to manage the reputation freefall and its attendant crises? You guessed it; that would be the public relations professional!

Thought leadership as a starting line

Organisational change (e.g. behavioural impact) needs to start somewhere, however. The expressing of an idea, or thought, seems like a pretty good point at which to do this to me. This will hopefully lead to discussion, interaction and communication, the basis for change actually occurring. Through this dialogue initial concepts and suggestions will be refined and made more practical, effective and achievable.

Do you design, implement or contribute to an organisational thought leadership program? What have you found to be the benefits and/or disadvantages of the programs? Do you feel they are an accurate reflection of organisational culture, or are they perhaps more about posturing?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Australian media is haemorrhaging.  Multitudes of Fairfax’s most conscience-driven and insightful journalists gone. 50 odd journos from The West Australian gone or going. Where will it stop? But where one story ends, another begins. The reduction in skilled journalists and the concomitant reduction in time remaining editorial staff have, places a heavier responsibility than ever before on public relations professionals operating in a manner serving not just the interests of their employer(s), but also of their employer’s stakeholders and, by extension, society as a whole.

This is not about dancing on any putative grave of journalism, or exploiting increasing challenges the media and quality journalism are grappling with; it is about standing up and helping the media produce quality content. Which begs the question, what is quality content? Well, how about content that:

• is factual
• is interesting to those it is targeted at (i.e. different media has different ‘customers’)
• features a range of perspectives (or two at the very least)
• recognises people are entitled to hold different views on issues, even if extreme and even if you can drive a truck through ‘truths’ espoused
• has a narrative.

Other characteristics could no doubt be added to the list. Conflict is probably primary amongst these.

Conflict, resolution and depth in narrative

I’ve been told conflict is what compels people; it’s what sells newspapers. Well, that may well be the case, but in my view the obsession with conflict has led to media developing two contemptible characteristics:

• Commonly having an unnecessarily negative tenor, both in the nature of stores covered and in the way in which they are covered (quant and qual, if you like)
• The desperation to find narratives of conflict leading to an abundance of stories which are prurient, inane and catering to the lowest common denominator.

I don’t know how journalists drag themselves out of the bed in the morning to cover these sorts of stories as they are so demeaning to all involved and do nothing to make society a better place. All they do is add to the trash heap of sordid information that clutters contemporary life.

(In my view it is more compelling to provide a resolution, or come close to hinting at a resolution. In this context Dickens, Faulkner, Marilynne Robinson, De Lillo – some of the greatest and most compelling exponents of narrative – come to mind. The impatience of media rarely allows it the time to resolve the narrative or, for that matter, capture its subtleties.)

The increasing platforms on which media operates (cable, websites, social media etc), with its insatiable demand for increasing amounts of content, is no doubt part of the reason for its descent into banality. It’s ironic, then, many of the very tools needed to feed the media beast – journalists – are being excised from the juggernaut.

Why media and public relations exist

Making money was always a key part of why media started. That is its raison d’être. Journalism existing for the common good, or as society’s conscience, has always been largely a fallacy; certainly in my lifetime, anyway. Journalism is media’s main tool to help it make money.

The raison d’être of public relations, theoretically anyway, is to assist organisations and their stakeholders change their behaviour so they operate more in line with each others’ needs and wants than might otherwise have been the case. A public relations professional is the discipline’s tool to help it achieve this.

Manifestations of public relations include:

• helping those without the power, or means, to express their views articulate it to organisations relevant to them
• helping organisations be as transparent as feasibly possible
• prompting organisations to change their operations so they are more in line with stakeholder expectations
• being a positive force, one focused not on divisiveness or negativity or conflict, but one predicated on building bridges with the view to deliver a win-win outcome.

This latter point is one that, clearly, journalism does not seek, nor is it inherently able, to deliver. Journalism operates from the outside; public relations operates from the inside – much closer to where organisational power and decision making resides.

At its best, public relations is the conscience of an organisation. Some journalists achieve this, too, but most media outlets as a whole fail in this because of their heavy weighting towards the negative rather than the balanced or positive.

Various research initiatives have identified in the order of 80 odd per cent of stories in the media are instigated by public relations professionals. So add these elements together:

• Journalist numbers are being dramatically reduced
• Most stories in the media are instigated from a PR professional idea or approach
• The public relations discipline exists to help both organisations and their stakeholders
• A fundamental tenet of public relations is generating narratives
• The need for society to hear more good stories and, inherently, the influence this can have in fostering a more positive, amenable and less defeatist mindset in society (okay, okay, this is on my wish list, alright?).

Is something happening here? Is this a tipping point? Is this the opportunity public relations has been waiting for to gain the credibility it has been seeking but, in many arenas, has clearly been failing to achieve for many years?

Can public relations help media not just survive, but evolve into a discipline that is more of a positive healing force than it has ever been before?

What is your experience in dealing with media outlets which are reducing their number of journalists? Is it impacting on your ability to place stories or the nature of their stories? How do you think the rationalisation occurring in the media landscape, as well as the increasing number of media platforms, will impact on how you do your job, or on the practice and evolution of public relations itself?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please go to the PR blog homepage and share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

A public relations professional who is not critical of the organisation she works with, including its communication activity, is failing in reaching her potential. Being critical of an organisation will help it improve the quality of its activity and better inform it of external perspectives, whilst undertaking the critical process in itself will sharpen the intellect of the practitioner, building her capability and career growth.

It is often assumed that being critical means being negative. This is not necessarily the case.

Critiquing can identify positives as well as negatives. More importantly, an excellent critique will determine why something is a positive or a negative, allowing the organisation to address the root cause of any issues or, if it is a positive situation, leverage it to add even greater value. This might mean extracting greater benefits from the situation being examined, or applying the insights to other organisational activities to improve them.

At the root of being an effective critic is analysis. This is not a skill easily gained.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

It takes an attitude that is thoughtful and reflective and a determination to work your way through what can seem like impenetrable thickets of issues and information. It may also need an in-depth knowledge of the business sector in which your organisation exists.

Without possessing the capability to analyse, however, your career in public relations will reach a ceiling that is likely to be impossible to break through.

Public relations shooting the elephant in the room

Being critical is a fundamental element of not becoming a victim of groupthink, a psychological phenomena which suppresses people expressing points of view and emphasising their importance. Being aware of the dangers of groupthink can lead to healthier organisational decision making.

This has relevance to the practice of strategic public relations (not really a tautology; we practice the tactical manifestation of PR all the time and whilst it should be strategically driven, it doesn’t actually have to be) for two primary reasons:

Firstly, from a process perspective public relations, like any business activity, should always possess a healthy, but not debilitating, sense of doubt. Decisions need to be considered from different perspectives. Are they the best we can make? Do not blithely make the assumption that the initial conceptualisation is the best, or even acceptable.

Secondly, and of course this is the great value of public relations, our profession is a boundary spanning mechanism. A critical part of our work involves determining what stakeholders are likely to think of organisational decisions.

Information gained from external stakeholders should play a large role in undermining tendencies towards groupthink as it will inject a healthy dose of reality into the process.

Bravery in critical public relations

Only the most sophisticated business leaders and organisations understand the value of critical public relations. Anyone who has practiced public relations for more than about five years and who is aware of the power of the discipline (encapsulated most adamantly in two-way symmetrical communication, understands how much of an ‘educator’ role we need to play.

In many ways, ongoing misperceptions about what constitutes public relations means that each of us has an important role to play in educating our employers, business stakeholders and even the general community about what we do and the way in which we can make, and in many cases are making, a meaningful contribution to business and society.

Corollary to this is that we need to be brave to step and inform our organisations what we can do to help them and why it is important that they seek our advice on many business matters. Which business matters? Well, how long is a piece of string?

Certainly, whilst there are certain business processes that are too arcane for PR to add much value to (sourcing IT and office supplies comes to mind), any activity that has the potential to impact on stakeholders will be worth getting professional public relations advice on.

The personal value of being critical in PR

As we mature, the self-evident, vacuous and easy options begin to pall. More importantly, from a business outcome perspective, the simplistic can often lead to less than optimum results.

I’m talking about the practice of PR here. Whilst some organisations will remain committed to the junk notion of PR as only being capable of creating a positive media presence (or protecting organisational reputation in a crisis), others will take the view that stakeholder relations is an invaluable business activity. And that by utilising public relations insights this can be achieved more expeditiously and with better results.

Personally, I’ve certainly developed a need to work with organisations that are more willing to listen to the views of stakeholders and adapt their communication and business operations, to some degree, to the needs and wants of these stakeholders. This is not an easy road for organisations to travel, but it is clearly the road which leads to the destination of better results.

Working with these types of organisations, as a default, means the PR professional’s critical faculties are exercised more, that she gets an opportunity to be involved in more important decisions than what’s on a Facebook content schedule and in more important activity than distributing a media release about annual results.

We are talking decisions that are ultimately about an organisation’s behaviour and its culture, its place in the world. Sounds pretty important, don’t you think?

Do you have examples of where you have been critical – either in a positive or negative sense – of an organisation you have worked with? How did you relay this information to the organisation? Did you have a strategy for conveying this information? What was the result? Do you have an example of where a more critical approach to the practice of public relations was needed?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

In public relations, values and worldviews are as important and relevant as facts. Together, they combine to form ‘truths’. Yet whose truth is correct? How are we to decide on the most appropriate truth and what happens when it butts heads with another’s – different – truth? Negotiation, collaboration and acceptance of each other’s right to difference will help us practice PR at its most effective level.

Facts are important. Truth requires the integration of ALL known facts, not only those that please us. If we are left with facts that do not fit into our global interpretation, this means a part of reality escapes us; we must therefore continue to explore.

This approach has the immense benefit of forcing us to remain perpetually open to the position of others; this openness is the basis of dialogue.

This is a guest post by strategic Canadian public relations professions, Guy Versailles.* By the way, if you find this post of value, please share it through LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

Beyond the facts, there are values. If the promoter and the ecologist espouse different views, it is because one gives more importance to economic development while the other believes the protection of the environment should prevail (granted, I am being overly simplistic here to demonstrate a point). Therefore, in public relations we must reconcile not only facts, but also values and worldviews.

The recognition of differences in values and worldviews is as important as the establishment of ‘the facts’ in creating meaningful dialogue.

I will go even further: the public relations professional must be cognizant of his own values and worldviews and those of his employer or client. Otherwise, his efforts to create dialogue will fail as he himself becomes a stakeholder in the debate he would moderate.

My truth vs. your truth

In most complicated situations, legitimate yet contradictory interests coexist.

The promoter of a project has his interests and his views; the people favorably impacted on by the project have their own, as do the people unfavorably impacted on. Media, governments and all other stakeholders will have their views, too. Who is right and who is wrong?

There are as many ‘truths’ out there as there are honest people. This comment is not meant to be cynical. We all develop our personal worldview, constructed on the basis of what we hold for true facts, which we weight according to our values and our beliefs.

This is my personal definition of the truth: Truth is a worldview where all known facts are coherently assembled and weighted according to our values and beliefs.

Truth in public relations

As far as truth goes, our professional lives are strewn with ambiguous situations. What is your assessment of the following situations?

• In the ice storm of 1998, when the island of Montreal (1.8 million people) was deprived of 90 % of its electricity supply for almost a week, the prime minister and the CEO of Hydro-Québec learned that the city’s drinking water supply was dangerously low. They chose to keep the information confidential until the problem was solved.
• Every day, spokespeople of commercial companies refuse to disclose trade secrets and corporate strategies. They depict favorably their company and sell their products without feeling obligated to emphasize their weaker points.
• Companies listed on the stock exchange are subject to rigorous disclosure requirements but their spokespeople will try by all acceptable means to present their business in a favorable light in order to maintain the value of their stock.
• The public relations people who work for the police authorities refuse to discuss ongoing operations, or even to confirm or to deny their existence. It could even happen that they deny something they know is true to protect an ongoing operation.
• Wikileaks has established that governments do not reveal everything they learn, or what they really think on other countries and their leaders.
• The public relations people in the service of promoters highlight the economic merits of their projects, while those who are serving environmental groups insist rather on their environmental impact. Both sides insist on different sets of facts, without necessarily painting the entire portrait.

All of these situations raise these questions: must we say everything? Is it acceptable, or even preferable, in certain circumstances, to hide, to pretend, or even to say things that we know to be false?

Where is the line not to cross, and depending on what criteria? Personally, I attach great importance to the respect of the facts, but I know, by experience, that all things should not be said at all times.

We intuitively decide on such choices in our daily lives. We tell our child “You are the most beautiful”. Perhaps we really believe this? Yet all other parents know this to be false, since it is THEIR child they find the most beautiful; there is a conflict between two ‘truths’. Perhaps we know it is false even as we say it? So we are ‘lying’ but it is our way of expressing our love. In any case, are we lacking in sincerity?

In summary, there is no simple answer to the question of truth.

We must learn to think and determine what must be said in each situation. We must develop our ethics. “Science without conscience ruins the soul”, said Rabelais.

Similarly, public relations without ethics open the door to lies and manipulation. The more we occupy a strategic position, the more this is true. That is why it is so important for experienced public relations professionals not only to deepen their training on the effective use of tools and methods, but also to take the time to reflect on their values and to form a strong ethical conscience.

What did you think of Guy’s discussion on the nature of truth in general and specifically truth in the practice of public relations? Do you have examples of when the application of ‘truth’ (or even disclosure) has caused you concern or grief in your professional life? Have you has cause to question the truth of organisations you have observed?

*Guy Versailles has expertise in communications strategy and planning, with a special emphasis on press relations, public affairs, internal communication and crisis management. He has worked in high profile government positions (including the Office of the Premier of Québec), Hydro-Québec and the Solidarity Fund QFL, a major investment fund based in Montreal. He holds a BA and is a director of Public Relations Without Borders , a non-profit organisation working with populations facing development challenges by using public relations to leverage social and economic progress. He is a past director of Quebec’s foremost association of public relations professionals. He was recently awarded the Yves Saint-Amand Award for Excellence, in recognition for his contribution to the advancement of professional public relations. He is President of strategic communication consultancy, Versailles Communication.

Is authenticity a viable notion in public relations? Is it a quality that will serve an organisation well? Or should it only be considered as a by-product of organisational culture and operations, rather than as a driving force? Authenticity is one of those characteristics, like ‘innovation’, which seems to be sought after, viewed as a positive and claimed, yet what is the reality of its application for public relations and marketing purposes?

People who are not ‘authentic’ in their interpersonal behaviour are not viewed as being admirable. Their influence is limited. They are probably not well liked. For most humans, however, persisting with a facade of being inauthentic is a debilitating process. Who can be bothered? It’s a schizophrenic process.

There are exceptions to this, such as playing ‘camp’, but even then the real person emerges at appropriate times, even if the real is cocoon and the facade is butterfly.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Organisations are not people

Anthropomorphism is when non-human forms (e.g. organisations) take on the characteristics of humans. I’ve discussed previously how this is an important way for organisations to generate thought leadership and deal effectively with communication in a crisis, but so is it relevant in an ongoing cultural and branding dimension for organisations.

In fact, a consistent theme of my exploration of PR has been the need for organisations to become as ‘non-edifice’-like as possible. Humans are more likely to respond to organisations with anthropomorphic qualities that those that are distant, glacial and clinical.

The anthropomorphism will manifest itself in both organisational operations (including the products and services it provides) and stakeholder relations (i.e. public relations, marketing, sales, customer service etc).

Authenticity is a difficult notion for organisations to grapple with.

How are products like cars, potato crisps and clothes, or services like transport, gyms and cafes meant to convey authenticity? Well, in some of the examples given here I think the answer is obvious. Are waiters sincere in their courtesy with customers, do trains run on time and in a clean condition and do cars deliver on their promises of glamour, reliability etc?

The judge of this will be customers, potential customers and stakeholders.

Authenticity in public relations

If anyone, especially a PR professional, thinks that public relations should have no influence on the qualities of an organisation’s products and services, they are wrong. If PR pros think this, they are selling the capability of our discipline short. In fact, they are getting right up my nose.

There is no discipline more important in the influence of organisational products or services than PR. Because no matter who much money products and services might make an organisation, if in making money they compromise an organisation’s reputation, then the organisation will not meet its objectives and its future existence will be compromised.

As the chief boundary spanner of an organisation (i.e. providing stakeholder feedback to the organisation, as well as selling an organisation to stakeholders) then public relations is relied upon to keep the organisation honest.

In other words, PR is fundamentally relied upon to keep an organisation authentic.

And just like in human-to-human relationships, without authenticity strong bonds will not form. Stakeholders will not return to buy more organisational products if the organisation cannot fulfil its promise of authenticity. Nor will they support or advocate the organisation.

Leadership in authentic PR

The quality of authenticity comes from the top. Organisational leadership must be sincere to be effective; it must be authentic. It must – just like the organisation – deliver on its promise.

The emperor’s new clothes may blind people with their audacity for a while; they may generate acclamation in the short-term; but this will not last for long.

Only behaviour that is considering meaningful, relevant and truthful will generate and maintain stakeholder support, which leads to organisational objectives being achieved.

Organisations that rely on spin, astro-turfing and other such tiresome unethical approaches to public relations will be found out for what they are: inauthentic, lacking in anthropomorphism; and a burden to all these that have chosen – including employees – to have anything to do with them.

Do you have examples of what you call authentic or inauthentic organisational behaviour? Can you explain them and provide comment on whether you thought it worked for the organisation or not? Do you think organisations should have anthropomorphic qualities?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

One of the mantras of ‘effective’ or ‘best practice’ public relations is ‘customise’. Customise, for the target audience: the methodology through which information is communicated; the language that is used; how much the approaches of broadcast, consultation, negotiation and organisational change are applied; and, most critically, how much ‘truth’, or how much ‘depth of truth’, is actually revealed through the communication process.

Over the ‘inverted commas’ yet? Me too. Enough of the irony.

The key question I am raising – how much truth should be articulated through public relations programs – is a fundamental one for public relations. It’s not such a fundamental one for marketing, as it is a discipline predicated on spin. Marketing creates products and services that meet a need or a want, then convince potential and current customers to buy stuff; then buy more stuff.

Anyone who expects ‘pure’ marketing to be founded on truth is living in the wrong dimension. Sorry, there are those inverted commas again. I use them this time as marketing is not so pure as it once was, which is a good thing.

Social media has had a large influence on this development of marketing, as the emperor’s new clothes get called out more often and with a much louder voice due to social media. All those customer review sites like tripadvisor and Urbanspoon (my recommendation? Thanks for asking. It’s Perth’s Mrs S) are an excellent example of this.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Of course, my observation about how much one can rely on marketing for truth, when I am clearly implying the sometimes quite reviled discipline of PR has greater credibility in this regard, will be taken with a significantly sized salt shaker by many.

Public relations is dead without truth

It worries me when, as PR professionals, we are called upon to customise truth. Selective truth(s)?

This implies that we should be telling one target audience one set of truths and another a different, or more enhanced, set of truths.

• Surely in this day and age the different truths will eventually leak from one target audience segment to another?
• And surely, when this occurs, the target audiences who did not receive the more enhanced or fuller truths will not be particularly thrilled with the information-disseminating organisation?
• Which then leads, in our triumvirate of surelys, to a diminished organisational reputation?

There are two further dimensions to this discussion.

Firstly, no doubt there are situations where the strategy behind the communication means that certain key stakeholders will need to be communicated with first. This might well be behind closed doors (I’m trying to refrain from the inverted commas, I hope you can tell…). An example of this is when politicians are briefed on a situation first as they are the ultimate decision maker on an issue, with other target audiences (communities, business sectors etc) communicated with second.

The second is that different target audiences will be concerned about different issues and, perhaps more relevantly, with different aspects of these issues. So it makes sense to mainly (but not entirely) communicate on the primary areas of concern to target audiences rather than those of little concern.

It’s a delicate balance, however, which goes back to the title of this post: is there an absolute truth that should always be told, or is it relative? And when making this decision, what are the guiding principles that we should be cognisant of and should guide us through the fog?

One lesson that many organisations have learnt the hard way is deliberately obfuscating the truth will come back to bite you. Transparency and proactivity should be PR foundations by default. Any other approach needs to be carefully considered in light of an organisation’s guiding principles.

Making the right PR decisions about truth

Factors that will influence the process of making decisions about the content used in public relations and the timing of its release include:

• Business objectives
• Moral imperatives
• Relationships and connections between target audience segments.

These three factors are, obviously, all interconnected. And how an organisation deals with them will provide at least some of its guiding principles.

Surely moral imperatives will play a significant role in how an organisation shapes its business objectives? And the relationships and interconnectivity of target audiences must play a significant role in an organisation’s pure marketing (the creation and selling, remember, of products and services).

These three factors should always be in the strategic public relations’ leader’s mind when she provides advice to an organisation in the way it not only communicates, but the way it conducts its business. Without the permission of its target audiences and other stakeholders to operate, it will not achieve its potential.

So tell us, how much do you customise the truth in the way you practice public relations? Do you have an ‘economy of truth’? Do you have examples where relative truth served you well and/or addressed the three factors noted above: business, morality, relationships?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Establishing credibility and engaging target audiences are key aspects of what both inbound marketing and public relations are designed to achieve. Inbound marketing is actually an ideal manifestation of aspects of strategic public relations as its content is predicated on having identified what target audiences are interested in and value, then the organisation working hard to satisfy those needs.

Of course, there need to be benefits to the organisation in going to the trouble of providing the content for inbound marketing. The first of these is enhanced credibility leading, in turn, to enhanced reputation. Enhanced credibility/reputation comes from a perception that the organisation is making an investment into the target audience, without looking for any blatant return from the target audience.

‘Blatant return’ is a relative term, however.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please go to the PR blog homepage and share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Take this blog, for instance. It provides regular content that it is hoped is of value to readers (an inbound marketing approach). By the same token, a main reason I do this is so that potential customers think I know what I’m talking about and give me work. This is reasonably obvious, I would have thought.

Another reason is that the content is on a blog and it is relevant to the services I provide, so when people do their Google thing, I might be fortunate enough for my blog to come up when they type in ‘rockin’ hard and totally hip PR guy who looks not too rough in a suit’. Just for a laugh, I have used this entire term as the alt tag on the image on this post, which will help the zillions of people using the search term ‘rockin’ hard and totally hip PR guy who looks not too rough in a suit’ find me. Anyway, you know what I mean…

So that’s a second reason explained – the intention is for inbound marketing to lead to sales. Unless you or an organisation are totally dedicated to doing the world a favour and seeking nothing in return, this is the ultimate reason for undertaking inbound marketing.

(And the likelihood of the ‘seeking nothing in return’ approach being an honest one is very thin, too. Satisfying the ego will always play a part in any putative inbound marketing gambit.)

A third reason for inbound marketing is differentiation. Of course, we are going to keep going back to reason two with all this, because differentiation is undertaken to help generate sales.

Differentiation makes your organisation stand out from the crowd. It also gives it a unique personality or brand that, ideally, coincides with what potential customers are looking for and feel an affinity with. One important characteristic of this differentiation through inbound marketing is that you are giving something for free and of value to your target audience. Not many organisations do that – hence differentiation.

Thought leadership and content curation

It’s not technically necessary to feature thought leadership as part of inbound marketing content, but in most cases you’ll find it an intrinsic element of successful approaches to inbound marketing. Social Media Examiner and Hubspot (not like these guys need a backlink!!) are probably the two best known examples of this approach in the digital marketing space.

Thought leadership assists in providing further differentiation and branding equity. This is because it provides new content and/or stimulating commentary that is of value (the latter is certainly what I hope my blog does, provoking people into thinking differently about PR and marketing-related topics).

You don’t have to be a genius to do this, but you DO have to be willing to hang yourself out to dry somewhat. Being a thought leader is not for the faint hearted. If you’re not willing to take a few risks and expose yourself (via your thoughts) then in my view you won’t ever qualify for the thought leadership description.

Relying only on content curation (i.e. collating the others’ ideas into a tidy package for your target audiences) for inbound marketing content is certainly feasible, and I’m sure it’s done, but it’s not likely to generate sufficient differentiation and value to help you achieve sales. Not on an ongoing or long-term basis anyway.

The curation approach works to a degree when used on platforms like Twitter and Google +, but even then to rely on it purely is somewhat hollow. It’s like hanging around with someone cool in the hope that you’ll be seen as cool too. It’s a bit sad, really. Muscle up, people!

Public relations using inbound marketing

The inbound marketing approach has been used by PR professionals for many years through mechanisms such as placing op-eds in the media and gaining speaking engagements for organisations, but it’s yet to reach its optimum level in the online environment. Significant reasons for this are organisations’ lack of willingness to commit to the approach and the time it takes to create outstanding content (these reasons being very much connected, of course).

There are many ways to leverage the investment into inbound marketing content, though. A single piece of outstanding content can be used in a plethora of ways:

• On a blog or website to attract customers and stakeholders and to build a database of prospects
• As the basis for a speaking engagement, including an organisation running its own breakfast et al seminars
• To email to existing customers to enhance the quality of relationships you have with them, cement their commitment to you and to grow the business
• Sharing with organisational employees to help in their own development
• For utilisation in the media as a customised op-ed.

Finally, the success of the inbound marketing campaign can be promoted to employees to show off how their organisation is engaging with its target audiences. This will make them proud of their organisation, hopefully improving commitment and productivity and, possibly, even attracting a higher calibre of new employees.

What inbound marketing approaches do you use in your work? Can you give examples? What are the strengths and weaknesses of PR and marketing utilising the inbound marketing approach? Are there other commonalities between inbound marketing and public relations I have not discussed?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please go to the PR blog homepage and share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!