communications

Intro to Crisis Communications

Heather Sliwinski Leave a comment

Almost 17 years ago, I started my career in public relations after a five-year stint as a trade journalist.  Since I have a social butterfly/people-person personality, I thought PR was all about mingling with the celebrities, traveling and promoting great news journalists were sure to write about.  After I took off my rose-colored glasses, I realized PR wasn’t always peaches and cream and often involved using skill sets like crisis communications to protect my company’s image and brand.

I started my career in technology PR and quickly discovered strategic crisis communications were must-have skills to survive in one of the most stressful jobs in the professional landscape. Why do you ask?  At most of the companies I worked for in the telecommunications segment in the 1990s, acquisitions, restructurings, layoffs and management upheavals were commonplace. Therefore, it was essential for me to develop crisis communications skills early on in my career to prepare my company for the worst.  Thinking on my feet, developing strategic counseling and planning skills were drilled into my DNA as a PR professional early on.

Fast forward to the last few years. What’s been the big trend in PR?  Whether you are a new PR or veteran PR professional, no one can forget the crises that have affected big companies like Chick-fil-A, BP, News Corp., Penn State, Netflix and HP. The common theme in many of these crises is that the PR and marketing teams didn’t develop solid communications plans to react to the media quickly enough and preserve their brand’s image.  Whether your company is in the technology, healthcare or travel and tourism field, you always need to be prepared for potential situations involving lawsuits, accusations of impropriety, sudden changes in management and other volatile situations on which your stakeholders — and the media that serves them — often focus.

Crisis communications is at the heart of my current job today.  My company provides essential information that helps customers across all industries and government predict, assess and manage risk. We provide products and services that address evolving client needs in the risk sector, while upholding the highest standards of security and privacy.  To that end, upholding my company’s standards of compliance in a highly-regulated industry is a natural extension of why crisis communications is so important.

For me, every day is different.  I have to stay on top of what’s happening with my company in the media landscape by reading and studying trends, including privacy and security changes, regulatory and compliance issues, to name a few.  In addition, I avidly monitor the news and potential crises through social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.  In a highly-regulated business like mine, it’s essential to respond appropriately to media inquiries as well.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job is helping our spokespeople and marketing teams develop strategic messages that help protect, preserve and raise our brand in key markets like financial services, government and insurance – ultimately so we can influence the key influencers – the media and analyst community.

Therefore, developing an issues or crisis communications playbook is the way our small communications team prepares for a potential crisis that could involve a technology issue, an executive appointment, a natural disaster or on-site employee issue.  This is our guide or instruction book for communicating quickly and decisivively to our key publics, including the media, the industry analysts, partners and customers, charities and investors.

Change continues to be the only constant in my job.  However, here are five for new professionals looking to add crisis communications skills into their careers:

  1. Take courses on crisis communications through PRSA and other outlets like PR News.  The only way to effectively learn how to become an effect crisis communications pro is by learning from the experts who have years of experience managing them the right way.
  2. Ask your key spokespeople what the five biggest risks would be to your organization’s business.  Asking the hard questions and preparing the answers to potential risks your organization faces, will help you prepare your talking points, Q&As and issues management playbook in the event a crisis happens.
  3. Study what has happened with some of the biggest PR crises over the last few years and learn from their mistakes.  Mistakes are bound to happen in the PR profession because communications aren’t always effectively managed or rolled out. But you can magnify those mistakes by a magnitude of 10 when a crisis is mishandled. So you can learn from what other companies or organizations have done to repair or resurrect their images and brands in the wake of disasters that will help you in the long run.
  4. Put your crisis communications skills into practice.  Start small by simulating a crisis communications drill.  Once your crisis playbook is developed, set up a war room and temporary phone lines and prepare your spokespeople to be trained to take questions from the media.  Practice makes perfect and drills help to make sure you are properly prepared if a true disaster happens.

Crisis communications is far and away one of the most difficult PR skill sets to master, but you need to learn to be prepared in case your company has to deal with a crisis.

 

Stephen LoudermilkStephen Loudermilk is global media and analyst relations director at LexisNexis, where he heads communications for the company’s Business Services and Screening practices.  In his spare time, he is actively involved in PRSA, where he serves as chairman of the Technology Section and treasurer of the PRSA Southeast District.

CSR: Why Organizations Can’t Ignore it Any Longer

Heather Sliwinski 4 Comments

Corporate social responsibility is not just a buzzword.

CSR is a function in which public relations professionals can and should take center stage. However, to bring an organization success in this area, it’s important to first understand why the industry’s emphasis on CSR will only continue to grow.

1. Millennials are changing the game.

As consumer segments go, the millennial generation (to which most of us new professionals belong) is both massive and powerful in the marketplace. As a whole, we are passionate and globally aware.

We care about things like sustainability and the environment. Driven by our “citizen of the world” ethos, we champion humanitarian causes and labor to give a voice to the powerless. We are activists and change agents. We oppose gimmicks, wince at blatant materialism and see through marketing fluff. We look past what a product will do for us and ask who made it, how they made it and how it worked its way through the supply chain and into our hands. We want the organizations we support to have a heart and a conscience.

What this means for brands and organizations is that CSR is not some theoretical “guiding principle” hung in a boardroom. These millennial values are actually forcing companies to revisit their business models and CSR assumptions, and the smartest organizations will let social responsibility revolutionize and dictate the way they do things.

2. Social media is ubiquitous – and it’s making everything else ubiquitous too.

With LinkedIn replacing rolodexes and Twitter affirming the 24-hour news cycle, social media has broken through boundaries that historically had been untouched. Facebook, Foursquare and other platforms have fully transformed society’s view of privacy. As a result, the public now expects to be intimately involved in everything from acquaintances’ personal affairs to the business decisions of companies they like.

In healthcare, the parties who fund research grants demand to see the medical discoveries and solutions made possible through their support. In nonprofits, donors want proof that their contributions are enabling good things, preventing bad things or making some sort of societal difference. In big business, investors need assurance that their company is acting ethically and will not become the next ENRON.

In the midst of all this, an organization must be able to represent itself honestly and openly, knowing that it can’t afford to withhold information – especially from the parties with whom it shares a symbiotic relationship. It must be conversational and flexible. The worst offense is to appear to be concealing something; you may as well put out a call for public scrutiny, assumptions and attacks. This greater call for transparency means that CSR must be fully integrated into an organization. It cannot merely be a morale program that a company decides to roll out. It has to be the organization’s lifeblood.

3. People respect consistency.

One striking thing about the recent presidential election was that so many citizens who couldn’t even articulate their views on political issues could tell you what they didn’t like about a candidate – and that was inconsistency. A common complaint about both major candidates was a lack of consistency and trust in their message.

It’s interesting to note how closely this aligns with the need for any organization to have discernible values and a consistent voice, from its investor meetings to its employee communications to its marketing. Consumers want to know what beliefs an organization upholds, and they want to know that the organization can be counted on to deliver on those values.

Companies can’t postpone CSR anymore—with greater demands for accountability and transparency, organizations need to find ways to make CSR an integral part of their overall mission.

Why do you think social responsibility is such a crucial function? How do you think PR supports an organization’s overall CSR strategy?

 

Keri CookKeri Cook works with Hill+Knowlton Strategies’ consumer marketing practice in New York. She graduated from Liberty University with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies and writes on topics ranging from media relations and marketing trends, to corporate strategy and crisis communications. While completing her undergrad, Cook was named PRWeek’s 2012 Student of the Year. She is also a member of the PRSA New Professionals Section.

Lessons from PRSA International Conference: A New Professional’s Perspective

Heather Sliwinski Leave a comment

The last time I attended PRSA International Conference in 2010, I was convinced that I needed (and wanted) to join Twitter after sitting in on so many compelling social media sessions. Joining Twitter when I did was one of the best decisions I made in my early career. On my way to San Francisco last month, I couldn’t wait to see what the 2012 conference would have in store for me.

In a three-day whirlwind, I furiously monitored Twitter feeds, filled numerous pages with notes (am I the only one who still takes handwritten notes?) and even had time to kick back and socialize with industry peers. The conference flew by, and my brain was on overload on my flight back to Chicago. I was excited about all the new tips and tricks I was going to implement right after conference, but once the overflowing inboxes and pressing deadlines kicked into my routine again, it would be easy to forget everything I learned and go back to doing things the way they’ve always been done.

Even though a month has passed since conference, a few key takeaways made a lasting impression on me. Here’s what I’m still thinking about four weeks later:

Content is king: One of the themes across many sessions and keynotes was that traditional sales-y press releases and marketing speak are no longer tolerated, by either the media or consumers. The key to achieving great results for PR campaigns is developing and sharing relevant content targeted to your audience. The question “So what?” has never been more important.

When the spreading of information is placed in the hands of the public—not just the media—content can cause your communications to sink or swim. Newsletters, images, tweets, blog posts and videos should all be developed with the audience in mind, making sure to show what’s in it for the consumer when spending their precious time on your communications. Provide interesting content and both consumers and the media will keep coming back to your brand for more.

Social media should supplement, not replace: Tim Westergren, keynote speaker and founder/chief strategy officer of Pandora, mentioned in his general session that social media would never replace his town hall meetings or personalized emails to Pandora users. Other presenters echoed his sentiments that social media is a great tool, but it’s not a strategy and should not be the lone tool in your toolbox.

Even the Conference committee realized that social media is no substitute for in-person networking and relationship-building and hosted a tweetup (my first!) for attendees, allowing us to meet face-to-face with other PR professionals we follow on Twitter, as well as make new connections. Being able to speak with other professionals in sound bites longer than 140 characters was an irreplaceable opportunity to make more meaningful impressions.

Don’t rest on social media alone to converse with your audience and provide relevant content for their use. You might be missing out on great chances to connect.

Passion drives success: Both Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and keynote speaker at Conference, and Westergren made one point clear—passion and belief in their business was the driving force behind their success.

As new professionals, we may not always have the privilege of working in an industry for which we have a specific passion. The truth is, because of the economy many of us are either still looking for positions or are working in positions that might not get us jazzed every morning. Maybe you love sports, but you’re interning at a local hospital, or you’re working for a corporation and long to be involved with political campaigns.

However, if we can learn anything from Stone and Westergren, it’s that the passion for what we do will determine our success. If you focus on your dedication to pitching reporters, keeping up with social media trends and providing the best results for your organization or client, you will succeed in your career. If you have a great idea, don’t give up on it. Dedicate yourself to PR and your goals.

I know I really do love PR, I love learning and I love when I achieve top-tier media coverage for a client. It’s all interconnected.

 

Who else attended PRSA International Conference? What else would you add? What did you learn?

 

Heather SliwinskiHeather Sliwinski is an account executive at KemperLesnik, a Chicago-based public relations agency, providing media relations and social media services to a variety of B2B clients. She has held positions in marketing and event planning for corporations, nonprofits and higher education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications with an emphasis in strategic communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sliwinski is the blog co-chair for the PRSA New Professionals Section. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

The Press Release Isn’t Dead: Writing for the Digital Age

Heather Sliwinski 2 Comments

In an age where established corporations are challenged by Internet startups and consumers order dinner on their smartphones, every industry is learning to adapt to modern advances in digital technology. In fact, industries are finding ways to harness these developments and capitalize on them.

Public relations is naturally at the forefront of this ever-changing landscape. A discipline responsible for communicating with diverse audiences needs to be where those audiences are and speaking their language. This change applies not only to mass consumers, but also to information and content gatekeepers – another role that has been transformed, not nullified, by the Digital Age.

As traditional media shifts, traditional media relations is feeling some growing pains as well. One of the basic tactical issues PR has to deal with is whether the press release is dead or alive. After all, it’s true that PR has evolved far past the elements conventionally associated with it. Modern campaigns commonly involve social strategies and larger-than-life activations that blur with what’s historically been seen as marketing territory. So it’s only natural that we pause to question whether press release dissemination – sometimes scorned as a pesky push tactic – is still relevant.

The truth is, no matter what you call it or what form it takes as digital continues to evolve, the function of the press release is, and always will be, needed.

Think about it like this. Scores of additional media targets have cropped up as the digital space expands. There are all sorts of individuals you might want to reach, from social media influencers to bloggers, that are increasingly difficult to differentiate from traditional journalists. Everyday consumers have been elevated to the level of news editors, as social media and consumer reviews live in the same space as the journalistic pieces we’ve always thought of as “media.”

It’s a tricky landscape to navigate, but success ultimately boils down to your ability to hold an early, active and formative role in telling and shaping your own story (or likely your organization’s or client’s story). Of course there are many ways to do this, like driving traffic to your site’s media center, fostering a social dialogue or sparking word of mouth interest. These methods are all good things, but the tried-and-true strategy of directly targeting those individuals who are writing and talking about you is still as effective as ever.

A press release is an opportunity to tell your organization’s story with the added credibility of your own proactive authority and voice. There will always be a need to do this, even if the look and sound of it changes from a standard document to a video pitch.

But just because the press release is a timeless PR tool does not mean we can let our approach to it stagnate. The Digital Age has altered the basis of what makes an effective pitch.

To really grasp this, we need to think more like journalists than ever. Keep in mind that their reality is shifting a swell. The 24/7 news cycle is morphing into more of a speed-of-light operation, and journalists are now expected to develop content for traditional outlets, websites and social media. In short, they are the busiest they’ve ever been.

On top of this, easy access to digital information and dissemination has created a much higher volume of incoming pitches. After all, just about anyone can write a pitch and blast it to contacts with a few clicks of Mail Merge. Journalists are weeding through an unprecedented amount of information that’s being hurled their way.

These trends aren’t going anywhere, so we need to be mindful of them as we craft our press releases. The demand for substance is higher, as the digital shift has ushered in a keen focus on content curation and has removed all tolerance for self-promotional language that gives neither journalists nor consumers what they’re seeking. The information inflation highlights the need for credible communication, and that’s exactly what you and your press release are positioned to deliver.

Besides the basics of thinking like a journalist and answering the questions you anticipate them asking – yes, the five W’s and all – you can take several steps to implement new digital trends that will help your press release cut through the clutter.

  • Use a multimedia news release and include elements that can be repurposed for news websites and blogs. Provide infographics, videos and hi-res images that your media target can easily repost.
  • Always consider search engine optimization. Remember that press releases are often housed on corporate websites or widely distributed online. Include keywords and links to relevant resources.
  • Take advantage of online distribution sites, like Vocus’s PRWeb, to help your information reach mass consumers just as quickly as traditional gatekeepers.
  • Make your content simple to share via social media. Be sure your headline fits in the 140-character Twitter limit, and incorporate links that allow readers to automatically share the release on top social platforms.

The form of the press release might change, but the facts, stats and newsworthiness still need to be there. There will always be a need for stories, as long as you know how to drive your story home.

How about you? What’s your take on press releases in the Digital Age?

 

Keri CookKeri Cook works with Hill+Knowlton Strategies’ consumer marketing practice in New York. She graduated from Liberty University with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies and writes on topics ranging from media relations to marketing trends, to corporate strategy and crisis communications. While completing her undergrad, Cook was named PRWeek’s 2012 Student of the Year.

Intro to Education PR by Kirsten Khire, APR

Zaneta Chuniq Inpower 1 Comment

Are you ready for a PR career in higher education?

By Kirsten M. Khire, APR

This year marks my 10th anniversary working in higher education public relations, following seven years in journalism. When people ask me what I do, I can predict some of the reactions. “It must be so nice to have the summer off.” Or “What a fun laid-back job!” Oh yes, I’ve come to identify the stereotypes and misconceptions about higher ed PR. For those new PR professionals considering hoping to break into the field, I have more information about working in higher education public relations and communications.

  1. Truth: It’s a very rewarding career. I often tell new interns during orientation that we are promoting one of the best products in existence – education. It’s a universal need and it’s very fulfilling to watch students complete their degrees and succeed. It’s also a thrill to be around faculty members who are researching and teaching new ideas in the field. That energy is genuinely contagious.
  2. False: Higher ed PR pros have the summers off. In my experience, the summer season is definitely quieter in the physical sense because the students and faculty members are mostly on hiatus. But for me, it has traditionally been a heavy production period (particularly in terms of publications and web projects) and a time to plan and strategize.
  3. True and False: It’s a fun, laid-back job. Fun it is, laid back it is not. If you are working for a public university, you are dealing with a non-profit budget, probably budget cuts, and a very small staff. You learn to be creative with your time and your talents. This morning, I created a PowerPoint for the dean, ghostwrote a dean communiqué and gathered photos for 3 fundraising videos – all before noon.
  4. True: Higher education public relations provides a solid public relations foundation. Recently I successfully completed the PRSA Accreditation process. The work I was doing met all of the major PR campaign processes – research, planning, implementation and evaluation. I may not have the budget that a major soft drink company might, but the strategy involved in PR campaigns remains the same.
  5. False: Higher ed PR doesn’t have clear goals. Like any business, higher education has very tangible business metrics. These include student recruitment (tuition dollars), external research funding (grants and contracts from government, foundations and industry) and individual support (donations from alumni and “friends.”) These are extremely real financial goals, and the sooner PR pros plug into them, the better. Public relations can proactively boost the brand and lead to measurable results of objectives.
  6. False: You need specific training for a higher ed PR career. My path is a case in point. As a former journalist, I’m comfortable conducting interviews with faculty members on topics that are unfamiliar or need layperson translation. As with most humans (we are only that!), PR professionals have strengths and areas of growth. Some are wonderful at media relations; others have a background in marketing. The goods news is that universities need a good variety of communications professionals.

All of this is a long-winded introduction to say, if you are still interested in this career, read on. Breaking into higher education PR is not impossible, but you need to be strategic. Having experience in non-profit settings, writing about research and of course being an alum/alumna all help. Pursuing your master’s degree or Accreditation also can help. Above all, networking with and talking to current PR pros in higher education can provide you with insight into the field and valuable connections during the job hunt.

Kirsten Khire is an accredited communications professional with more than 17 years of experience in public relations and journalism, with a focus on strategic, digital, web and social media communications.