Image, PR, Reputation, Media, Social et cetera

Today, the in thing is to go social, if you are in any business worth its name! Thats a great thing to do if you thing your organisation has the necessary soft power to do so. By soft power, what I mean is the basket of social skills, and competencies plus the kind of investments in budget and human capital, that is needed to start, incubate, sustain and eventually create a winning social presence. Social is full of conversations! Are you ready?? But that is not the REAL key ingredient to craft a winning social presence...   The two key ingredients, the crucial ones for you to bet on a social presence is - commitment from the top leadership to a meaningful and credible social presence, and more importantly, an openness to conversations - conversations that could shake the belief system of your organisation, just in case you always have been a company sans internal and external dialogs. Lets take the second thing first - today, social media presence or managemen...

This is an age of round the clock news breaks, and news agencies around the world are in a frenzy to get what they perceive as ‘breaking news’ to the consumer. But this is also the age where news houses are under intense scrutiny by their consumers, and also critics who are more informed and equipped by the social media to counter any misrepresentation or mistake in facts that come out along with the  breaking news and views. Are you unleashing collaboration power in PR? So, in this age of social 3.0, where news and views are shaped by the minute, how does one serve as a better PR professional. The PR pro serves his set of clients, equipping them with the right news to be communicated at the right time in the targeted media – conventional, and social. His expertise in the communication  business is meant to serve the needs of the client who acts a consumer. On the other end of the spectrum, the PR pro also serves the needs of the journalists. The well equipped and...

Although the word social media is being used in a broad sense, the question is more in the context of the 140 character powerhouse of information, Twitter! Jumping the 'social' bandwagon?? Globally, and in India as well, celebrities and the common man alike have taken to tweeting as not just a habit, but a must do. In the case of celebrities, even just a few tweets gets them thousands of followers, and along with that comes loads of scrutiny both by the media, and their followers/critics. Celebrities use their status sometimes to a great advantage (like Oprah); at the same time, some of them tend to shoot them in their own legs by their over enthusiasm, and also in their bit of recklessness. In a nation of a billion views on any topic in the universe that is India, such reckless tweets land the celebrities into controversies, and at times land them in litigation. There are a whole bunch of celebrities who use ghost tweeters, with their views on issues be known, a...

The word battle ready might sound ominous, but that is how spokesperson must be always. There could be a call from anywhere in the globe on something which happened a few minutes ago, and which would have an impact on the company or its fortunes. It’s a viral world and not always does the spokesperson have the luxury of having information by the minute.   Does he speak the right words? But the ability to respond in an appropriate manner to any query from anywhere is one quality which is a must! The spokesperson does not have a magic wand to all queries, and it is important to admit that – the best answer when confronted with an uncomfortable or ill-informed query is very simple – give me a while and we will come to you with the facts! But most times, out of a quest to close the issue, and under pressure of the situation, the response is a bit casual. This is a perfect recipe for inviting negative media, and possibly messing up an already fluid situation. In case th...

Does you PR advisor tell you this – come what may, we will make sure that we get your company covered in the media – in a nutshell, call it a “column inch guarantee”? Nothing can be far from a blatant lie, and honestly, PR never works that way in any part of the globe. As a matter fact, if you have a long term PR/communication strategy for your company in mind, you must quietly stay away from such ‘column space coverage’ guarantors! So, who promises you the moon in PR?? Look at the media (and the journalist fraternity) as end consumers of your content. They have their their own creativity constraints – and its in a sense a battle between classy content, the most crucial advertisers (who walk away with a chunk of the column cm’s), and the editor who wields the wand as to what the reader must see and know! The same analogy can be drawn to all kinds of media – print, television, online and so on. Add to this, the clutter of competitio...

What puts off journalist friends most, when you churn out information on behalf of a client, in the form of a press kit or a media release is this – factual errors.  Might sound so rudimentary, but as a matter of fact such errors creep in while we battle with deadlines, or with over-enthusiasm to send out the release so that we help the journo meet the deadline? It’s the journalist’s responsibility to check the facts in any story – that said, if you are representing a client, you are the custodian of the facts mentioned in any media information that disseminates from your end. Factual errors are not the big ones like the client concealing the facts or misrepresenting reality, in a crisis situation. Simple errors like getting the name of the person/product spelt wrong, getting the timeline of events wrong, or just spelling the CEO’s surname wrong – such errors come easily to the notice of the consumer – the reader of the viewer of the news, when and if it finally gets there...

Public relations agencies of different hue and size may keep pitching with your organization, to get an opportunity to engage with your communication strategy and execution. And we have always seen that organizations just look for these – does your agency have the scale, size and a national/international presence, and would you be able to reach across all (including social) media, in every nook and corner of the world! There is nothing wrong, and in fact, it’s important to check on what credentials your prospective agency comes with! Well, at the same time, it is important to bear in mind, that the agency must also have the ability and agility to engage in PR strategy and execution of an organization of your kind. You may hire the best of the agency in the universe, but think about this – is there a point if their strengths do not sync with your company’s scale and strength, and what if their capabilities are more specific to large sized companies, and not for the kind your comp...

A good PR pro constantly looks around to beef up his communication armor with the right kind of tools. There are so many of them, and with the advent of the 24/7 barrage of information powered by social media, you have a new kind of ammunition that is kindling the imagination of communication professionals. Yes, welcome to the world of “twinterviews”. If you are consulting a client for their PR strategy, it is high time you suggested twinterviews to them; and same to your friends in the media fraternity. Twinterviews, as the name suggest are twitter + interviews – so brevity and factual accuracy is at the core of them.  As compared to some of the other tools in our communication armor, the time and energies that need to be invested in doing twinterviews is the least. Twinterview – screenshot In the media world-over, twinterviews are catching up fast as a powerful tool – that help organizations and their spokesperson to state powerfully points regarding any issue – it...

For some reason, the word ‘crisis’ is associated with ‘panic’, and most of today’s organizations tend to immediately get pushed into a panic mode at the distant sight of a crisis. What then happens when there is a real crisis on hand, is anyone’s guess. There are examples all over of how even the communication savvy leadership/PR team of an organization, gifted with a fair amount of media leverage, gets into a shell and resorts to denial mode when it’s time to speak and write more information, to be virally sent out to every media outlet possible. The cardinal rule in handling PR in times of a crisis is to get immediately speaking and sending our fact statements to the entire gamut of media houses – including web2.0 and social platforms. The singular intent once the information/details of the crisis is handed out is to deliberately invite media conversations, with the intent of giving more and more details possible. Never give a remote sense that your organization is shying away...