From the course: Public Relations Foundations

Starting with your credibility

From the course: Public Relations Foundations

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Starting with your credibility

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- PR is about building trusted relationships that lead to loyalty and advocacy. It's not fake news filled with hype just to push a client's product or service. I'm saying this because over the years, the industry has lost some credibility. So how do you build credibility? It comes from consistently practicing key principles. Let's go over a check list for your company so you can see which areas you need to focus. The first principle is moving stories beyond traditional media. PR became known for broadcast distribution when it requires targeted relationship building tactics to get the attention of journalists and bloggers or new media influencers with exceptionally large networks who share with friends. Do you communicate directly with your customers? Those advocates who will share on your behalf. Next, there's audience, as a PR pro, you know the people you serve. Years ago, PR pros would wait to be handed messaging from company leadership that appeared in their news releases, brochures, news letters and website copy. Not anymore, instead you can track key words or search through social media communities tuning into customer conversations about you. Gather insights and you're able to share more meaningful information. You should also think beyond the news release, news releases are still a good vehicle to frame out stories with mass consumer appeal, you can cast a wider net via a news wire service. News releases are also a good vehicle for timely financial disclosures for public companies. However, now you have different channels to share news about your company. There are blog posts, videos, social media announcements, news can be posted to social media communities such as Instagram. Next, you can measure precisely. Today, you can learn how to use smart data to communicate. With an abundance of data, it's your job to understand the best metrics to bench mark your program's success. Yesterday's metrics won't work. Today, we're looking at analytics from awareness and engagement to website traffic and performance behaviors online. Being in PR, means becoming data educated. Data education also ties to technology. A key PR principle is to learn about new technologies that help you to tune in to the marketplace more easily. Today, that means social and mobile. These make it easy to evaluate competitor's strategies and your customer's behavior, watch your competition and track customer trends. Lastly, even if you're practicing all the principles I mentioned, it's all for not if you're not doing one thing. It's with the utmost importance that you practice ethical communication. Every step beforehand would be moot if you're not truthful, transparent and fair in this hyper connected world. Which of these principles do you practice consistently? Which do you need to work on? In knowing this, you can zero in on improving your PR. Your stories will stand out and help your company build relationships with the right people.

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