Aspects to be considered when considering the strategic power of round tables and white papers for public relations professionals include: getting potential participants to attend and extracting the best out of participants. Let’s also look laterally at a ‘different way’ of approaching round tables.

Round tables help public relations professionals achieve positive media coverage, enhance relationships with important organisational stakeholders and strengthen organisational positioning. The white paper, produced from a round table, resources issues-driven media campaigns (of which opinion pieces are likely to play a leading role), direct mail and online communication campaigns.

In the B2B environment, op-eds (opinion pieces) can be much more effectively leveraged than in the B2C environment because they can be placed multiple times across different industry sectors. Op-eds are a valuable part of public relations and media relations strategies because of the media coverage they can generate.

Op-eds are a valuable part of public relations and media relations strategies. This is because of the media coverage they can stimulate and the positive positioning, through thought leadership, they produce. An additional, and extremely valuable, characteristic of op-eds is that the content generated as part the op-ed scoping process, can also be used to create more than a single media placement.

Media releases, whilst not entirely dead as a means of generating media coverage as part of a public relations strategy, are these days nowhere near as effective as establishing a thought leadership platform. One key result of thought leadership is that media will often call the PR professional looking for talent and content, rather than the other way around!

Along with eye-rolling, can-you-believe-it dumb marketing and/or PR moments in 2009 (think loser marketers, the GFC and social media) there have, thankfully, 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?

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.

Public relations is not a synonym for media relations, the latter being one tool that public relations professionals can utilise as part of an holistic communication strategy.

In a nutshell, public relations is about creating, enhancing and/or maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its stakeholders. When operating at its optimum level it is less about control than facilitating dialogue and understanding.

In the ever-clichéd – and oh-so-simplistic – battle between the good and evil of public relations and journalism, it is journalism that is more often the devil incarnate.