Best Practices in Public Relations!

This semester has flown by! From our first advanced communication class until now our goal was to collect a list of the best public relations practices. Here is the list that I have compiled.

(1) Knowledge of business operations - If you don’t know how a business works and especially, how it makes money, you cannot succeed in PR. Period. Public perception is the ultimate referendum on good business operations or the ultimate check against poor operations. You need to be in a position to know your client’s business as well as the client does in order to advocate and deliver.

(2) Personal relationships – Smart content and distribution only get you so far. For best results, it is always who you know. Everything else is a cold call. That’s right: you’re a whore on Information Blvd. whispering “Hey baby, want some sugar?” at passing journalists. This supports what every class speaker has said. Networking is vital. Our last speaker Ms. Stacy Gaswirth of the Shelton Group PR emphasized how crucial networking was.

(3) Knowledge of consumer behavior — No consumers, no business. Wrong consumers, no business. Who target consumers are, how they think and how to reach them — especially on the Internet — is the lynchpin of PR.
Some factors that need to be considered are:
1) The psychology of how consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives.
2) The the psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment
3) The behavior of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions
4) Limitations in consumer knowledge or information processing abilities influence decisions and marketing outcome
5) How consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the consumer
6)How marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more effectively reach the consumer.

(4) Strategy – If you’re not strategic, you’re simply tactical. Anyone can be tactical — it’s called telemarketing — or spamming. You’ll win some battles but always lose the war for media and consumer attention. No one plans to fail, they fail to plan. In PR one must devolop plans for crisis time.

(5) A great attitude-“If you think you can or can’t, you’re right” — Henry Ford. A can-do attitude is simply unchanneled passion. A great attitude builds confidence and trust, even if the end result is a loss. You always get hired on attitude, not skill. Being in the public relations field can be extremely stressful and those who succeed and rise to the top generally have the best attitudes and adapt well to stress.

(6) Journalism skills – PR pros are essentially corporate journalists with sales responsibilities. You have to think and write like journalists in order to out-think them and write stories they want to write themselves. This is why the best PR pros are generally former journalists, especially those who go to work for major corporations. Ms. Gaswirth is a prime example. This also proves Professor Flournoy's point on how crucial writing is to be successful in public relations.

(7) Rhetoric and negotiation skills — You need to know how to argue well and properly break down an argument into premises and conclusions. You need to know how to negotiate (fight) beyond one round. And to play poker and call bulls***. This is a sure-fire recipe for another important quality: thick skin. In public relations you must know

(8) Focus — PR is a non-linear, fast paced business with an ever-changing environment. It requires a lot of juggling — the kind with fire sticks. Good “jugglers” must focus on tasks at hand, stay calm and organized and know when to switch gears.

(9) Research- You must know everything about a person or a corporation before you take them on as your client. By doing research you can learn a lot about you client that you would have never known. I think this might be the second best PR tip after Networking.

(10) Blogging- Blogs are being incorpated in most organizations today. Another class speaker and CEO of IdeaGrove PR, Scott Baradell, spoke about how crucial blogging is. He started out as an avid blogger. You can use blogs as a public forum for discussion about news, events and products. Blogs are a tool that can be used to postion yourself as an expert and your company as a leader in your industry. Blogs can be used to build trust with your readers, stop the spread of false rumors, respond honestly to criticism and nip crisis in the bud before it gets out of hand. (Example, As discussed in class about the noki chocolates. Someone was blogging negative stuff about the chocolates and the company finally went bankrupt.) Finally, blogs enable you to tap into conversations already taking place about your company, industry and competitors. One speaker, Katherine Smith of Visible Technologies, introduced our class to TruCast which enables you to track and analyze blogs.