PR Spam
It is part of a PR practitioners job to send out press releases. More importantly, its is also their job to get their message through to their target audience effectively.
The campaign against “An Inconvenient PR Truth” show that there is a growing demand that PR people take care to send press releases only to those to whom it is relevant.
The emergence of this campaign indicates that sadly many people working in PR ignore the importance of targeting the right people. They don’t seem to respect the fact that in today’s busy world people don’t have the time to read material irrelevant to them and the job they are doing.
The consequences? The PR industry as a whole gets bad reputation, this also affect those who may not be guilty of PR Spam.
This campaign is a wake-up call that warns the industry to take care not to ruin the relationship with the media with these small but annoying things. After all they are dependent on each other.
PR Spam can backfire and in this case it surely did.
The issue of irrelevant press releases will probably not go away, because sometimes it is difficult to tell who ( or which media outlet) would be interested in the story, but perhaps even making the effort to take more care in targeting can make a difference.
For more info go to:
Industry backs controversial campaign aimed at cutting PR spam
by Gemma O Reilly PR Week Online
An Inconvenient PR Truth (video)
Image from: Flickr.com
The impact of Social Media on PR
The good thing about getting involved with New Media as a PR student is that I get to know the theoretical side in general while learning how to use the new kinds of media. Exploring and experiencing social media as a user, blogger (publisher) as well as an aspiring PR professional gives so many viewpoint to look at social media.
Average people participating in social media we have various degrees of impact and undoubtedly they are being bombarded with so many messages and calls for action as well.Out of the various idea discussed in class around this new phenomenon the Concept of Multiple Voices stuck with me the most. If we just forget for a minute there are journalists and corporations and PR professionals out there, we do just have the many voices of the internet users.For them to use their voice and not just submerge into the chaos of many voices that don’t make sense, they need to get organized. In other words as an ordinary user of the internet or blogger it just might be the case, that your voice is just worth as much as many supporters you attract and organize around you. Even if you are not a PR professional you need a plan and many help to get your message across.
This is where for example Twitter comes in. I just started to use it and learn about it recently. Some people get tweeting so right that they have thousands of followers. For me this is really amazing, because Twitter is not like Facebook where you have a very detailed profile through people ‘get to know you’ more. Since Twitter focuses more on the messaging bit. Your messages have to be newsworthy if you want to have people follow you (as opposed to streams of consciousness).
That’s one way to go get your voice heard for sure.
Image form: Flickr.com
Positive thinking in crisis.
I have just been reading the book called Risk Issues and Crisis Management by Michael Regester and Judy Larkin. They raised an interesting point of view about crisis management.
Instead of thinking about all the damage it can to to a company, (all the loss of trust and the anger of stakeholders), crisis management can be looked at as a source of opportunity.
If there is a plan for a potential crisis and when bad luck hits the company shows how well they can handle it can actually win them friends, support not to mention a reputation of reliability.
It is really important though to make a clear distinction between promises and actions.
Covering up a mistake with a nice story can backfire. The right actions have a much bigger value.
Unfortunately the past of the company can really affect any plan to do crisis management. If in the past it had been known for mistakes, attempted cover ups, and mishandling of issues then the harder it will be to shake that reputation.
I am wondering how difficult it is to turn a company with a less then perfect past around? Is it possible? After all, the media like to go and dig up other negative stories when a crisis emerges, which makes matters worse. If so, how does a PR professional deal with that?
Is it all a matter of positive thinking?
War Spin
The documentary on BBC on war spin showed the ups and downs of the American version of Iraq war media management. It is a common practice to centralize and control the media in wartime. It happened many times look at the Vietnam War, or the World War I and II. These were the first wars that have been depicted by photography, spoken about in the radio and broadcasted on TV. These wars and the Iraq war have the variety of media and technology in common. Of course the Iraq war now shows how difficult it is to actually control the media at a time where technology advanced so far that everything is reported real time and not always by professional journalists.
As a PR practitioner it has become increasingly difficult to manage the media and undoubtedly there were techniques that have gone wrong. For example the ‘Central Command’ in Doha, were journalists where gathered to listen to briefs and watch the war on TV. It might seem a good idea from the PR perspective, because press conferences are important but journalists do need to be respected and given valuable information. In Doha it seemed like instead of bringing them close to the war, the army pushed them away from it. Have the press officers tried to vary their information take more care to give the truth (maybe not the whole truth, but no deliberately misleading information) would have helped. It was not a good idea to report on advances in Basra that haven’t taken place yet. They should have anticipated that with the journalists (embedded or not) out there the truth would leak out. Not to mention bloggers, ordinary people who would definitely share their experiences online.
It is frustrating not to be able to report on successes in war but this was not the best way to do it. This brings me to another issue. When the soldier Jessica Lynch was rescued from Iraq, it was said that she had been held hostage by Iraqi military. Later a different story unfolded, according to which she was in no danger of that kind, she had accident wounds, proper hospital treatment and no captivity. Maybe instead of using her story to demonize the Iraqi fighters, it would have been a better idea to show how Iraqi civilians are worth saving because they are humane and hospitable. I agree it is a less emotionally appealing spin, but it would have saved the American spin doctors and the military from the humiliation caused by the emerging stories of the opposite version. Those who try to control the media need to understand it. For example it was very likely that journalists will do their best to find the hospital, talk to the people involved and witnesses (because surprisingly Lynch was reportedly unable to remember anything).
The lesson of the day really is: know the media, the people who are likely to report and try to avoid embarrassing yourself and who you are representing through making some avoidable mistakes. Especially if you happen to work in the battlefield of the media.
Image: flickr.com
Introduction
Hello, welcome to my blog!
I am Karolina a Public Relations student at University of Westminster, London. My blog is about the various issues and topics that involve modern PR.
Enjoy!
Karolina
Carol's PR Blog 