Public Relations

Two Important Notes I Need To Make

Garth Beyer

I watched Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell get arrested on the UW Madison campus the other day. I’d like to amend my Pen and Journal post and add a video camera!

The second note is a little explanation/realization of why I haven’t been writing so much on PR. It’s definitely not an excuse, although it has a lot to do with excuses.

In the past, after any presentation I’ve watched, any PR guru that I met with, or any dinners I’ve had with PR professionals, I have wrote about the lessons they provided, suggestions, and bits of advice they gave me.

The reason for the recent lack of my writing isn’t because I’ve stopped learning from the universal sphere of PR influencers or that I’m not passionate about sharing with you all that I learn. No. It’s that you can’t keep coming back to my blog to read about what you should be/could be/must be doing if you want to be a PR professional.

As of lately, every PR professional seems to be reiterating all the same pieces of advice, nuggets of knowledge, and lessons they learned. (Of course, they present it in different unique ways, but the gist is still the gist.) PR is something that you can research a bit, but then you have to go out and do it.

Preparing to enter the world of PR is 10% research and educating yourself.

The other 90% is going and entering it.

Torched KFC And No PR #muslimrage

Garth Beyer

As you have likely heard, a KFC in Lebanon was torched on September 14th by those opposing the anti-Islam film that ridiculed Mohammed. As deep of research as I could do online, I could not find a single action taken by KFC in response to it. Where is their PR team? What an incredible opportunity to turn the level of buzz up even more!


I’m not the only one that thinks KFC needs to step up their PR efforts. Clearly their choice to produce their meat according to Sharia Law didn’t stop them from torching the building. They (Muslims) must have seen, as I just did, that the certificate is only valid from May 11, 2012 to November 11, 2012 – just two months away. From the outrage created by the film, I guess it seems alright to cut burn it short.

Other than this short agreement, KFC’s PR team has done little despite that they have a grand opportunity to stand out, to make a voice, not just an image. KFC has the opportunity to represent all of America. KFC has the opportunity to respond in whatever way they feel best. Yet they remain silent. Where is the PR?

The way I see it is that everyone expects the President to be the intermediary between Islam and the U.S. He won’t. He can’t. There are too many repercussions with whatever action he takes, he’s better off doing nothing. KFC though, can take that position. KFC can leverage themselves by taking a stance where no one else will, by responding globally, with a statement, with a response, with a comment, with anything!

Oh yea … and it’s worth a note … I really liked KFC … now I can’t go out to eat there! #muslimrage

Identifying Publics For Beginner PR Specialists

Garth Beyer

Mr. Grunig and I have something in common. Other than the fact we (you included) are all fascinated with studying Public Relations, Grunig and I share a relationship with UW-Madison. Grunig received his Ph.D at UW-Madison and knowing this made writing this topic for you ever more interesting.

If you’re not yet aware, James E. Grunig is a Public Relations theorist and guru. He is well-known for creating the four models of Public Relations. Before I elaborate on those four models, you must understand a little about your public. After all, the public must be important since it is in the career Public Relations.

You probably haven’t had any experience running a Public Relations campaign. So what? Whether you are researching how to identify your public for your first campaign or hundredth, it’s always positive to review the basics.

We may define public, in simple terms  to mean a group of people who having something in common. According to Broom, author of Cutlip and Center’s Effective Public Relations, public is defined as “people who are somehow mutually involved or interdependent with particular organizations.”

Let’s identify a public by looking at the public of whose in charge in the restaurant industry. You have a broad categorical in-charge public of Employer. Within that public there are Managers, the CEO, Stockholders, and other decision makers. Inside that public, there are more in depth ones. Managers for example is a public made up of Regional Managers, Assistant Managers, Store Managers, and so on. Categorically defining people is what it means to identify your public.

However, it goes much further than simply sorting skittles by color. This is where Grunig steps in and begins to build his four models of public relations.

Grunig had examined how specific publics behave toward issues and the messages that communicate them. In doing so, he identified four types.

 All-issue publics are active on all issues.
 Apathetic publics are absentminded and abeyant on all issues.
 Single-issue publics are active on a rationed number of issues.
 Hot-issue publics are responsive and participative on an issue after being exposed.

Believe it or not, Grunig goes even further to define publics. (Hey, he got famous because he kept defining publics after people were satisfied.)

Latent publics are flatly unaware of their relationship with a situation.
Aware publics understand the importance of an issue and how it relates to them, but have not produced any action.
Active publics are taking action on a particular issue.

Once you can define your public or in other words, your audience, to this level of depth, you are ready to decide which of Grunig’s four models of public relations you are to implement. Here they are.

I could go on to explain each model thoroughly but I have found this resource to help with that. You know it’s an extremely helpful source since he uses Seth Godin as an example.

Cheers.

 

Broom, G. M. (2009). Cutlip and Center’s effective public relations (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Getting Your Client To Take A New Angle

Garth Beyer
Maps: Making Exploration Even More Interesting

Maps exert a powerful pull on the public psyche. That same pull can be – and at times, must be – made with your client.

Just because you’re the professional does not mean that you don’t have to convince your client to follow through with your plan. Especially when your plan entails risk, trying something new, and exploring different angles.

The most effective way to persuade is to create a map, a picture journal, a story of exploration.

What we have seen since the original mapmakers is that maps create a sensation, a desire to explore. Maps lead to explorations which are then turned into stories. When you combine maps and stories you receive an overwhelming amount of support and investment to draw more maps and make more stories.

Maps are defined as a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes. Can you see the simplicity of its connection to Public Relations?

You may think your client will go with your plan simply because it shows that treasure will be found if it is followed. In reality, they may already be finding treasure and with most clients you will discover that it isn’t so much about finding more treasure that is the problem.

The wonderful aspect of creating a map for your client is about making the map interesting. Anyone can find treasure, but it takes an expert Public Relations Specialist to design a map that is more invigorating than the profits to be made.

Turns out it’s a win-win situation.

The more enthusiasm a map creates, the greater the reward.

There Is Always A Guarantee

Garth Beyer

People get nudges, hunches and feelings in their stomach that they are 100% right about something, without a doubt, it’s guaranteed.

That impulse, that intuitive response is what every PR Specialist must produce for every client. Whether it is a small guarantee of reaching a specific person in the audience you are reaching out to or as big of a guarantee as increasing profits by 67% within the first week and a half of implementing the new customer relations strategy you created.

There is no trust between you and your client without a guarantee. For a PR Specialist, that connection must be there because the success rate of your “guarantee’s” is what defines your credibility.

Making a guarantee is an act of colossal responsibility, and with this responsibility lies a power which is often abused. That power being the construction of a guarantee of outcomes in sectors of the strategy which you have no control or influence over.

To make a successful connection between you and your client (financially speaking as well), you must work to discover the largest guarantee you can make.

To make a successful PR Specialist, you must do this with every client and know that crossing the line even once can set you back further than where you began.

While you may believe that you will simply provide small, simple guarantees, you need to accept the fact that your credibility, your status, your repertoire is only as substantial as the guarantees you make and live up to.

A PR’s Ethical Respect

Garth Beyer

An underlying principle to the work of a PR Specialist is similar to an old adage about love.

“If you don’t love yourself, how can you love anyone else?”

In this saying, the word “love” is interchangeable with any other word that enforces some form of positivity, amiability or professionalism. Working with PR, the most fitting word to exchange it with is “respect”.

It now reads,

“If you don’t respect yourself, how can you respect anyone else?”

Even a better question: How do you plan to be a successful PR Specialist when respect is simply a cousin of fairness, and fairness is a code of ethics that only authentic PR Specialists and Firms use.

What makes or breaks connections in business and in life can be pinned down to ethics, whether it be fairness, accuracy, honesty, or in this specific case, respect. Respect for oneself as well as mutual respect with a client is what stabilizes the connection.

While the bridge you build with another may not lead to a success, it is better to have a bridge maintained by respect than no bridge at all.

PR: Knowing Your Audience

PR: Knowing Your Audience

Garth Beyer

Many PR firms either get lucky or just get by when their strategy for knowing the audience is to judge and make assumptions.

According to a survey conducted by Jericho Communications, the typical American Fortune 1000 CEO is more likely to have watched The Simpsons than to have watched all three presidential debates.

Now, PR may be in control of social media, but PR still involves meeting the target audience, becoming one of them in the real world (not just online). You must know where they (your audience) goes, where they eat, what they read, watch and listen to. A great PR Specialist assimilates herself into the audience at the same time as keeping an eye out on social media trends before initiating a PR strategy.

Familiarizing yourself with the lifestyle of your target audience allows you to pitch stories directly to them, create the publications that they will read, and direct the appearance of your product so it faces them in an unobtrusive way. It does well to note that there still must be your own passion that is put into the publication. Since you are placing your pitch in between a stream of feed that the target audience is more familiar with than the last presidential debate, how passionately you present your pitch matters considerably.

Unable to create that publication? Send a press release to the newspapers, the magazines, radio stations or TV stations that you know your audience views. Does breaking news involve your product? Your topic? Get those press releases out. As you know, PR isn’t about putting your product or a story in front of everyone’s faces, over and over and over. That’s called advertising. PR is special, it’s separate from advertising although it uses it. It’s about strategizing the perfect moment to turn a presentation public.

Syncing your pitch to your audience is just as important as getting in sync with the perfect moment. What puts the “specialist” after PR is the ability to combine the two.

Assimilate, Syndicate, and Presentate