The world is one big global village therefore its important that professionals become internet savvy.  Whether we like it or not the emergence of information technology, has altered the traditional ways of doing business; so it beehoves every professional to atleast understand the role internet plays in their professions and utilise it effectively. 

Please find below a summary of an article, about the role of internet in PR and why Practitioners must go with the flow.

Happy Reading:)

         Online PR: Emerging Organizational Practice

By Pertti Hurme

International Journal of Corporate Communication

Abstract: This article describes the changes in the media and how companies and organizations operate. These changes have big impacts in public relations practices and education. New PR tools are described, identified and guidelines are given.  In the future, there wont be two kinds of PR practitioners anymore. Instead PR practitioners are expected to integrate all means of communication in their professional qualifications.

Introduction

The development of information and technology goes hand in hand with communication.  Ross and Middleberg (1999) state that information and communication technologies are revolutionizing the practice of public relations. They believe that if PR practitioners don’t use Internet communication as a PR strategy in this era they may damage their clients and employer. This article describes recent changes in the media landscape where companies and organizations operate. These changes have great impact on the basic practice of PR and education.

Organizational Media Landscape Changing

There have been many innovations in information and communication technology in the last few decades.  A crucial factor in the success of these innovations depends in the speed they are adopted by organizations. It took radio 30-40 years to have 50 million listeners, and TV more than 10 years, while the World Wide Web (WWW) the number of users in 3-4 years. It seems like Mobile Internet will be adopted even faster.

WWW started in the mid 1990’s and now it’s widely used in organizations in the form of intranets (internal to organizations) and extranets (clients and partners have access to specific areas of the intranet) in addition to the public Internet. Mobile Internet will increase fast and change the organizational media landscape quickly. Therefore, the gain in network mobile communications will be important in all kinds of organizations.

Impacts of Communication Technologies on Public Relations

PR practitioners have 2 tasks; one involves message production and sending out these messages to public/clients/stakeholders in multiple channels, and the second task planning and executing the communication strategies.

The use of new communications technologies has added dialogue between and within organizations. You have the one-to-one dialogue; which is email between 2 persons, or many-to-many involves a large number of dialogues in a discussion group or chat room… etc.  Organizations have to deal with Web Dialogues, which are very difficult to control.

Mass communication is fading and shifting to dialogical and interactional communication. PR practitioners need to be smarter than the Internet users. The Internet’s speed, interactivity and crossing nations borders make it attractive to the public relations practitioners as a communication tool. The new information and communication technologies have potential for interactivity.

Mobile technologies show plenty of promise in interactivity. 2 types of interactivity:

1)   Quasi-interactivity: one way communication (eg: subscribing to organization’s news releases and sending feedback to the organization)

2)   Two-way, truly: interactive communication (eg: exchanging email messages with a PR person)

Both forms of interactivities are useful.  Networked communication still needs to me monitored if the audience is large. Through the internet PR practitioners can reach their clients and stakeholders directly bypassing the gatekeepers, but also engage in dialogue with them directly.

New Technologies, New Practices for PR Practitioners

4 functions are distinguished in the practice of public relations: analysis, plan, action and evaluation. In PR practice the perceptions and opinions of important publics are evaluated. Conventional methods include analyses of print media and analyses of publics. New analysis have emerged: web pages and electronic publications can be examined, survey questionnaires can be online, Usenet discussions and chat rooms can be monitored to track current and potentially troublesome issues, logs of organizations websites can be analyzed and number of hits monitored.

By monitoring the Internet, PR practitioners learn what their clients, stakeholder and the public are saying. By monitoring and getting feedback you get to know how to improve your strategies and messages.

Evaluation works simultaneously with other functions. Ongoing evaluation of  both analyses, plans and action are vitally important. In modern organizations these functions cant be divided. These functions follow these guidelines:

*   Consider clients/audiences

*   Online means up to date

*   Get in the right lane on the information highway

*   Align yourself with people in similar industries

*   Synergy and integration are important

*   Give the clients, the stakeholders and the media what they want the way they want it

Conclusion

In organizational public relations, print media will stay strong, but the new information and communication technologies will increase. Nowadays keywords of PR practitioners are interactivity, dialogue, dynamism, and involvement. In the future  ‘Web PR age’, there wont be two kinds of PR practitioners; those who use traditional PR tools and those who practice online communication. These two will be integrated together to one tool. Organizations now need to rethink their strategies and tactics.  They need to look at PR in a different way, interactive and networked.

PR practitioners have to have good skills in information and communication technologies. Their outlook has to be wide and they are expected to be experts on group and team communications as well as organizational behavior while there is a constant change in information and communication technologies. They have to understand how people use media, how they produce messages, and how the borderline between the reception and production have become blurred due from the new information and communication technologies. PR practitioners have to integrate all communications to be part of their professional qualifications.

A friend of mine once asked me: "What do PR practitioners do"? . I wasnt surprised by the question because there are still tons of people who havent come to grips about the job of a PR person.

Well i found a little video, that explains in a nutshell the job of a PR Manager.

I hope it inspires someone to pick up PR as a profession and eradicate the negative things you might have heard about the profession..

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public    relations officers.

                                                                -Daniel .J. Boorstin         

Hello Peeps!!!

Alright! i found this interesting article about the situation of Public Relations in New Zealand. I did a summary on it and i thought to share. Apparently PR in New Zealand is not regarded in a positive light, which is not uncommon, because it was only lately the PR in my country started blossoming. The case of New Zealand brings to mind the challenges (with regards to perception of the public) faced by the PR profession and its practitioners, in most countries.

Most people perceive PR in a negative way, such as spin doctoring and smoke and mirrors ; as such do not consider it fit for management roles. Others feel the job of a PR personnel can be done by anybody else, so there is nothing complex or special about it to warrant a separate portfolio. *sigh*. I would live you to read the summary of the article and find out for yourselves ways in which we can change the lingering stereotypes, starting with our small environments.

Enjoy :) 

                                                                            

                                                                      

                                                                         

A SUMMARY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AMONG THE FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT: A NEW ZEALAND PERSPECTIVE

By

Graeme D. Sterne

Public Relations Journal, Vol. 2 No 3; 2008

 

Objectives: This study explores the position of public relations in New Zealand business hierarchy, the perceptions of business leaders about the profession and the source of their opinions.

Introduction: Public Relations is generally believed to be a management function amongst other things if recourse is made to the tons of academic definitions on the profession but the reality of the market place in New Zealand poses a threat to its management function. The changes in New Zealand business environment such as migration and globalization call for new ways of managing and conducting businesses. In New Zealand public relations is viewed in three ways:

1.      Its media publicity answerable to marketing

2.      Strategic communication is a senior management function handled by the CEO

3.      PR elements such as reputation management, relationship building, and media relations are responsibilities of the CEO or MD with little or no need of PR.

In a bid to discover why public relations is not esteemed highly and utilised in New Zealand, the author of this article decided to carry out a research using samples from the country’s 200 largest companies.

Body: The sample consisted of senior managers and above. Data was gathered two ways; cluster sampling was used and 100 companies were phoned. 28 companies agreed to participate in longer face-to-face interviews; there was also an uneven distribution as some companies declined the offer to participate. 32 senior managers did the longer interviews: 8 CEO’s, 4 Marketing GM’s, 5 CFO’s, Legal counsel or Strategy GM and 15 corporate/public affairs GM’s. Some of the people who declined stated that they didn’t believe in PR, while others said people didn’t know they recruited PR practitioners, all of these to some extent showed the negative attitude towards PR in New Zealand.

Questions such as: What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of PR when you think of PR and who handles reputation management, crisis communication and community relations were asked. Analysis was done using symbolic interactionism for longer interviews.

Findings:  57% of respondent stated that PR is associated with event management, promotions, launches and reports to marketing; they believe that media management in terms of crisis has a strong element of lying, spinning and promoting positive not the whole view. In short the profession suffers from spin doctoring perception.  42 out of 81 respondents stated that PR is at management level but under different titles such as GM, Director or VP of public affairs or corporate communications, while 13 describe it as intertwining and overlapping with marketing. 73% employ PR practitioners at some level.

There is also the constant need to reinforce the competence of PR practitioners at management level and constantly advocating for their roles in operations. 45% link communication evaluation to their financial bottom line, while relationship building based on transparent communication is judged on the quality of your information. Public relation is often seen as a communication manipulation tool used by marketers, its role seen as by-product which can as well be handled by management. Some say it’s cheaper than advertising and are pressured to use it by their American headquarters. Also a few recognise that PR could have a more strategic role in stakeholder management.

27% of the CEO’s stated that they were the only ones who could represent the organization as spokesperson except in rare cases; all the CEO’s believe good performance is the basis for reputation not PR. Their value for strategic communication is with regards to delivering business outcomes but not any price and as such it is important to have transparent communication to build trust. CFO’s and legal counsels handle communication because they believe PR practitioners lacked the business prowess or command little respect at management table. CEO’s also ranked PR lowest in communication elements and considered each other key to reputation management; advertising was also rated low, mainly because of its one-way communication method and high cost of running it.

When quizzed about the source of their perception of PR, most of them stated it was from personal experience, senior colleagues and the media. Only a very few said the internet, seminars and education was responsible. One CEO however admitted that the relationship between him and his GM of communication is an ideal one. Some of the bad experiences were as a result of overstating and being unable to deliver and the utilisation of smoke and mirrors. Regardless of the education, workshops and seminars, these perceptions have been formed overtime e.g. those who studied in the UK were aware of the PR disasters of Exxon, Bhopal e.t.c.

On the way forward, PR practitioners are advised as follows:

a.      PR duties should be stretched beyond publicity and advanced qualification needs to be clearly defined as to what role it plays.

b.      PR practitioners are advised to strive in changing the already damaged reputation through their performance as most of these executives gained their perceptions through experiences.

c.      They need to take advantage of the need for best practices and good communication practices to address their already damaged reputation.

d.      In-house practitioners have to be skilful in negotiating their role, develop business skills and competencies in order to raise their value.

e.      Emphasise the strategic nature of communication, evaluation and representation of goals and use business process for those who report who report to CFO’s or legal counsels.

   

Five I’s of New Zealand PR:

Integrative: Fusing all communication functions to achieve consistent messaging across organizations –marketing, government relationships, customer service, and interest groups e.g. using the Maori tribe model as a holistic view.

Integrity: Requires eradicating spin, smoke and mirror, while heralding transparency, honesty and not embellishing reports. They consider the country to be small and as such there’s nowhere to hide.

Interactive: Two-way communication practices, especially in the web should be encouraged as it helps to delineate long term relationship based approach. The flexibility required to be an interactive communicator and a responsive agent of change requires that communicators operates independently and placed at management team.

Incorporative: the diverse communication practices, such as technology, face-to-face for traditionalists, word of mouth for community groups and written word for low context audiences requires the need to develop PR practices that are inclusive of the diversity of cultures, sub cultures and generation e-communication among stakeholders.

Interpretive: Understanding trends in the environment and translating it into advice for the company. Awareness requires research, measurement and evaluation to measure impact and adjusts policy to accommodate the need to change, sits well with strategic functions of management.

Conclusion: The spate of crisis at all levels requires the inclusion of PR to be able to handle such crisis better. The future of PR lies with the practitioners because executives draw most of their perceptions by observing PR performance. There is the need for one who operates with integrity, skill, articulation and has a long term view on relationships.

                                                                             

Hey People!!!

I found this hilarious short video about Public Relations in Hollywood, it made me laugh real hard because it tried to depict how publicists come up with those catchy celebrity headlines; couple, break-up, pregnancy and baby dramas we see everyday in hollywood tabloids. All with the aim of creating media buzz and getting attention. Does the word 'Spin', come to mind?

I would advice you that real PR practitioners do not follow what is seen in this short film, but then again life is too serious as it is, so its okay if we just relax , stretch out legs and watch this funny but eye opening clip.

There's always something to learn, so Enjoy!!!

 

 

There is a very popular and old saying which reads thus: "He who fails to plan, Plans to Fail". I guess we all know that is very true. Many times we do things in a rush, without following procedures or carefully mapping out a structure and in the end we come up with results, that are far from encouraging.

 

Planning is an integral part of Public Relations and should never be overlooked no matter the pressure. The importance and significance of planning for PR practitioners can be seen in the summary of Ehsan Khodarahmi's article below.

 

Happy Reading & I hope you take away something from it!!!! 

 

A GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH

- Larry Elder

 

 

 

STRATEGIC PUBLIC RELATIONS

 

Ehsan Khodarahmi

Marketing consultant, London, UK

 

Introduction

There is no single definition for public relations and strategic public relations, but what the scholars and practitioners stress about is the planning of SPR. Despite the fact that most definition of PR by scholars have the term management, there is the belief that it should not only be limited to management focus especially at organizational level (Dozier & Lauzen 2000). Planning is essential in SPR, since communication needs to be strategic and analytical in 21 century.

Public opinion is evolving as fast as the world and PR functions need to continuously evolve in order to create a balance between adding value to management. credibility in organization and making sense to strategic publics; hence the need for SPR.

Ongoing evaluation & Research, as well as education and training are key to the development of SPR. It is a model of negotiation and dialogue and should be analyzed & understood in-depth in political, cultural & social context (Du Gray, 1997).

PR models and frameworks

Scholars and practitioners in PR have different models and frameworks in developing effective SPR. Elements for developing effective SPR: Internationalism, competition, strategic expertise, evaluating of PR activities, adoption of new tech, personnel development & recruitment (Itruing, 1998).

Practitioners and scholars emphasize the difference between PR and marketing, they are two different managerial functions.  All senior PR managers and boards of directors need to be aware of the PR activities and allow PR managers to make strategic decision making process. Negative consequences of these actions are using internal and external factors are taken into account at the time of decision-making.

Key Success to SPR

Integrated communication is the key factor in a successful SPR since organizations meet desirable output. At a crisis PR is the most crucial component of communication mix. Communication is not just a word in the PR world, it’s a strategic thinking, proactive plans and actions are the key concerns in any SPR campaign and management.  Adopting appropriate approach that doesn’t offend anyone nor satisfies everyone. According to Lages & Simkin there are 4 Steps in problem solving procedure:

*   Problem definition

*   Planning

*   Communicating & Implementing set up plans

*   Evaluation of entire process

PR is analyzed in various ways. According to Lages & Simkin there are 3 levels of PR: Industry level, Consultancy level and Practitioner level. Communication strategies have been neglected to be analyzed well in detailed and discussed by scholars and practitioners. In any PR campaign planning, a SWOT analysis is recommended by scholars.

SPR Objectives

Mutual understanding of PR is the key objective of SPR. SPR requires strategic thinkers boost success in their organization. Planning doesn’t always guarantee success but it increases the chance of achieving your objectives. Corporate strategy development and strategic business planning are the key to every SPR. Practicality and clear code of ethics are still matters to be looked at by many in PR industry. In international PR, what could be practical in one country might not be suited in another country.

Two –way symmetrical communications

Two-way symmetrical PR is utilized by practitioners in their act and studied by scholars. Thus, creating balance is the core competence of SPR management. There has to be a relationship between organizations and their publics to achieve SPR objectives. There has to be trust between these two mediums.

Communicating your message to the public is the key to ensure that your message to the public has been sent across clearly.  SPR is all about the communication between an organization and its public.  So setting the right message and selecting appropriate media channels is significant in trying to fulfill their SPR objectives and goals.

Conclusion

Adapting an appropriate model of SPR requires impact analysis. SPR would consider future competitions, public’s demands. SPR has long term effect. Utilizing internet would assist organizations to develop  effective and long term relationship with strategic publics.

A SUMMARY OF TWITTER AS A PUBLIC RELATIONS TOOL

By

Angelica Evans; Jane Twomey; and Scott Talan

Objectives: This paper sought to explore the effect of the most popular micro blogging site, Twitter in communication campaigns through social media strategy and to ascertain the role it would play in future public relations campaigns.

Introduction: It is no gainsaying that the internet and social media sites have changed communication drastically since they emerged, sites like  face book, LinkedIn, MySpace, e.t.c. have over the years been utilised greatly by prominent individuals and big organisations as tools to reach their target audience; e.g.  Face book and LinkedIn, were used during President Obama’s 2008 campaign, while the World Bank uses social media sites heavily to reach its target audience. Despite the popularity and heavy usage of these sites, some media traditionalists believe they are only a fad that has no lasting value.

The global reach of the internet is very useful for public relations practitioners both efficiently and rationally as it makes reaching one’s target audience easier. Research has proven that the integration of internet is necessary for success in public relations and frameworks have been developed and tested, buttressing this fact. Be that as it may, there is the need for constant monitoring and evaluation in order to avoid situations such as hackers having access to privileged communication. Internets do not on their own affect relationships but the manner in which practitioners use it does.

Social Networking sites helps communication and manages relationships which in reality is what public relations is created to do and as such it serves as a vital tool for that should be utilised by PR professionals. Blogs on the other hand, offers opportunity for collecting information from a target a demographic of likeminded audience, a viable tool for PR practitioners to sway opinions towards their clients. The limitation lies in the fact that responses on a blog cannot be generalised most times.

Micro blogging is the most recent information technology innovation which allows users to describe current states in short posts. The most popular is Twitter, which allows for quick updates, opinions, and ideas called tweets in 140 characters. Although Scholarly research on the effect Twitter has on communication is scant, it is believed that people turn to it for breaking news, reviews and opinions, a place for companies to sell discounted products and for local businesses to inform consumers of deals and theme nights.

Over 2 million people used twitter in 2008 and the number has very well tripled. It allows people voice internationally e.g. Iranians used it to voice their opinion about the election and support for opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. It is against this backdrop that the authors of this article decided to explore the following questions, in order to ascertain the role twitter plays in public relations communication campaigns:

1.      What do PR executives think about the current use of Twitter?

2.      How is it used in modern PR campaign and the costs?

3.      What is the future of Twitter in PR campaigns?

Body:  12 participants were interviewed who occupied positions as MD and above from top 50 PR firms. 4 chose a phone interview which lasted about 25 minutes, while 8 answered their questions via email. Responses were grouped by themes such as: real time, instant, media e.t.c.

Results: Many of the respondents believed twitter is a valuable asset to daily practice, fearing that although the popularity may diminish with time but micro blogging will continually be a significant component for campaign as it allows for micro-target communication, one-on-one communication with media and instant communication. The ability to keep people updated on current topics is a huge plus and the relationship it helps foster with media practitioners who respond instantly to tweets rather than traditional means such as email or phone calls is also a big bonus. This opens a door that was not available in the past for PR practitioners and the media.

On the issue of costs , many respondents agree that the major expenses with using twitter is the fact that it is time consuming, tracking the right people and getting them to follow you. Others say they charge clients monthly for a complete strategy. Many agree that while it helps for integration in a well rounded media strategy, it is only a tactic, part of a larger strategy and should be used when one intends to connect in a highly targeted, authentic and personal way. On the issue of longevity, many are not certain of the future of twitter but believe micro blogging is here to stay; others believe that the utilisation of the site by audience will determine the usage by organisations. Some call for continuous evaluation and also encourage their clients to tweet chats and tweet ups. They are also advised not to start a tweet page, if it cannot be maintained as it lives a negative impression on the mind of the audience.

Conclusion: Regardless of the seemingly numerous benefits of twitter in public relations, some respondents raised concerns about the disadvantages. Stating that twitter makes it hard to sift conversations and the more people you follow, makes it easy to get distracted by irrelevant information. Some also say it is very easy for reputations to be damaged on twitter and as such it requires careful monitoring, evaluation and responses to conversations.

The limitation of this article stems from the fact that some respondents adjusted their responses to protect their firms without necessarily divulging how they use the micro blogging sites in their campaign strategies. Also only those who use twitter were approached, which makes it difficult to generalise the results, and the fact that it is executives, who by nature of their positions are barely involved in communication campaign strategies that were interviewed poses a bit of a problem; it would have been more reliable if junior officers who are responsible for coming up with these campaigns and utilise social network sites heavily were interviewed, however this leaves room for further research.

A measurement tool should be developed to test the effect of twitter, because the lack of measurement tool to prove its success and return on investments makes it difficult to quantify or ascertain its value. It would also help if an experimental research can be carried out between face book, twitter and no social media to see the impact on communications campaign. Finally this research can also be replicated with lower level PR practitioners involved with hands-on communication campaign strategies.

 Another little summary to help aspiring and practicising practitioners of PR, especially in this day of social media/networks....Enjoy!!

I found this interesting start-up tips and why PR is very essential in an organization, and i thought to share. Hope you gain a lot from it :)