Marketing communication has the potential to be, at least partially, an application of effective issues management. This is essentially because marketing communication is a proactive, ‘friendly’ mode of communication and may not necessarily raise suspicious hackles from stakeholders.

Try substituting public relations for science fiction in this comment from ground breaking sci-fi author Samuel Delany: “Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be – a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they, and all of us – have to be able to think about a world that works differently.”

There are great benefits for organisations in building up deposits in the stakeholder ‘relationship bank account’, with one of the most important being to mitigate how a crisis impacts on reputation and brand. It’s a straightforward equation: simply proactively communicate and – this being the really interesting aspect – ensure the organisation (operationally and culturally) listens, learns, interacts and evolves.

Those that advocate the view that PR and advertising will be subsumed into a hybrid communication discipline and those who believe the discipline should mint itself a ‘new’ name, like ‘communication professionals’, are in grave danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What about the most basic tenet of PR, that which constitutes it being a discipline that can help organisations change so they better meet society’s expectations?

When attending networking events as an organization’s PR representative, many of the same norms of behaviour apply as in the strategic steering of a viable and healthy social media presence. A goal should be to leave each event and encounter confident that an accurate and authentic profile was presented, organizationally and personally, with the intention [...]

The rise of social media has created untold new tools and channels for all public relations practitioners. But in the field of issue management it is having a dramatic impact not just on the day-to-day practice of the discipline, but is changing forever an organisation’s stakeholder relationships and the expectations of its stakeholders.

Age delivers experience, one of the strongest influences on competency and excellence that exists, with PR being no exception. Whether it involves any form of writing, managing a crisis, developing strategy, integrating public relations into broader business and marketing activity, managing teams and working with colleagues, or simply having developed a humility that comes from the realisation that everyone makes mistakes – it’s what you learn from them and how you deal with them that matters most – age=maturity=PR/business ROI.

Public relations is a multi-faceted business discipline. In this post in-house, agency, industry association and academic PR professionals, as well as a marketer and a market researcher, all highly reputable and respected, share their definitions of PR. Facets include: two-way and not necessarily intermediated communication; increasing brand awareness; helping organisations articulate compelling stories; engaging target audiences; creating, renewing and improving relationships; delivering positive publicity; encouraging social change and community mobilisation.

Passivity is the danger that public relations cannot afford when involved in lobbying. If we are only advocates, we risk marginalizing ourselves with clients, media and thoughts, and opponents. Beyond advocacy, there are two additional roles that help us keep perspective: monitoring and interpreting for clients the strong and valid points made by our “opponents”; actually bringing various parties together in a dialogue to determine and implement common interests.

Is lobbying where we hide the less savoury and morally questionable side of what our public relations communication discipline involves? Secret backroom conversations. Non-promoted initiatives. Unwritten agreements taken as writ. Clearly, there is plenty about lobbying that won’t pay(off) for it to be articulated.