Gaining editorial media coverage will be a key tactic in generating awareness and support of infrastructure projects, but its primacy will be determined by market research and internal stakeholder liaison. The application of strategic alliances will also help give credibility to the project and expand its communication ‘footprint’.

The value of employer branding is becoming clearer each day as the battle for workplace talent gets increasingly fierce. Australia, for instance, is going through a severe skill shortage crisis in key areas. Yet many organisations are lagging in their thinking and application of employer branding, including how public relations can be incorporated into this quite specific, and generally marketing-aligned, business communication activity.

Public relations is critically important to branding; perhaps even its most important element. This is because PR is the primary architect and facilitator of stakeholder engagement, its brief being to be concerned about both the organisation and its stakeholders – their knowledge, opinions and behaviour. And a brand is built, these social media-powered days especially, as a partnership between multiple entities.

The CEO is (or should be) the most prized communications asset at a company’s disposal. He or she drives corporate strategy and gives voice to performance and progress. The CEO establishes the building blocks of corporate culture and is often the public face of the company. They exemplify all that is good, bad, promising or disheartening about an organisation, so whether or not they are the spokesperson for an organisation in crisis is a question of fundamental importance for corporate communicators.

It is hard to see anything but social media being the tactical focus for public relations in 2011, but my guess is that most clients of agencies will still be allocating the bulk of their budget to media relations. I don’t think organisations, in general, are sophisticated enough yet to realise there is better ROI to social media than having stories in the media. But 2011 could be the year where this changes.

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

Whilst ex-journalists are not qualified and do not have the relevant experience to suddenly become the head of the organisational public relations function, they also have the potential to be great PR function heads, for a number of very valid reasons.

When answering the question, ‘why ex-journalists should not be ‘parachuted’ into the head of the organisational public relations function’, most responses were mainly defensive and could not tear themselves away from an obsession with media relations.

Ex-journalists are not qualified and do not have the relevant experience to be ‘parachuted’ into the head of the organisational public relations function. When this occurs, “it is a disaster waiting to happen”.

When formulating round tables, public relations professionals need to decide whether to invite media to attend and whether to offer media exclusives. It is generally the major objective of a white paper process to gain positive media coverage for the ‘sponsoring organisation’, though there are a plethora of mechanisms through which the white paper content can be leveraged.