Posts Tagged ‘PR’
Who Has More Power Over Your Organization: Stakeholders or Publics?
For the past few months, there have been discussions in various PR communities regarding defining public relations and it seems to be a continual challenge. If PR theorists throughout he decades have different definitions*, it makes sense that the industry as a whole might be challenged to operate in one cohesive fashion.
Part of the challenge in defining PR, it seems, is that most companies, agencies and their practitioners consider PR the art of getting ink. Ink slingers, if you will. With such a huge misperception, we should be curious as to what other misunderstandings might be out there.
For this post, the working definition of PR will be:
Public relations is a management function that establishes and maintains two-way, mutual relationships and communications between an organization and the publics and stakeholders that often determine their success or failure. PR management includes on-going research, analysis, planning, and evaluation in order to understand, develop, and nurture strategic relationships.
Stakeholders are Publics, But Not All Publics Are Stakeholders
When PR is looked at as media (or blogger) relations only, a funny thing happens… Every reader begins to look like a potential customer (or donor, etc.). More ink equals more impressions equals more potential customers! (That philosophy usually adds up to a big ‘ol nothing if the only goal is revenue generation.)
It’s key in PR efforts to understand that not all publics are stakeholders. Stakeholders are the groups that have an actual stake in the organization: customers, donors, employees, students, shareholders, investors, etc. Publics are any group that might have a common interest or values in a given situation, but they do not have a stake in an organization. That certainly does not mean that other publics are not powerful groups.
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Tags: media relations, PR, PR Management, Public Relations, Public Relations Management, Publics, Stakeholders | 
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Your “Industry Experience Only” Requirement Is Hurting Customers, Employees and Shareholders
“Industry only experience” is not a new requirement, of course, and exceptions have always been made for talented candidates. However, in a down economy, it seems industry experience becomes a highly enforced criterion used to close the door on marketing talent.
I am not in Human Resources (HR), so I cannot tell you why it happens (I have my suspicions though). However, I have been a hiring manager and will say industry experience is something I avoid like the plague when reviewing resumes. Why? Because industry experience has absolutely NOTHING to do with the level of experience, talent, drive, problem-solving skills, enthusiasm and passion a candidate has to offer, which should always be the benchmark when hiring. A smart employee can learn any industry. It isn’t rocket science—unless you are handling marketing and PR for NASA.
[Sidebar: Please do not use the ‘regulations excuse.’ Again, a smart employee can learn regulations. An exceptional employee, however, learns them and then figures out how to stay within mandatory regulations without allowing them to chokehold company goals and objectives (Read: Growth).]
According to Executive Staffing Solutions’ latest newsletter, there is good news and bad news when it comes to filling open positions. The good news is that there are many good positions opening up for candidates. The bad news is companies are not recognizing top talent when it comes through the door.
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Tags: communications, customer experience, Customer-Centric, Customer-Focused, Marketing, Marketing Management, PR |
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Is Personal Social Media Experience A Negative For Job Seekers?
(Note: This is a personal post.)
As you might know, I am looking for my next career opportunity.
What you may not know is that I have been looking for over 3.5 months with barely a nibble from potential employers. And I am not alone; there are a lot of exceptional marketing and PR professionals who have been unemployed for years.
Recently, a recruiter helped me to understand today’s job market with this advice:
“Remove all of your personal speaking, writing, blogging, and social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare links, etc.) items from your resume. Companies don’t give a crap about that, they only care what you will do for them. Those items are red flags letting them know that you’ll request to be out of the office speaking or on Twitter all day and that you will not be helping to solve their day-to-day problems (i.e. tactical work).
There it is. A dose of reality.
Keep Reading…
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Do Public Relations Professionals Even Know What PR Is?
I was originally going to write a post about a business owner who has recently written two blog posts in the New York Times about what is wrong with PR (You know who I am referring to. If not, click through the some of the links included in this post to find out. I do not want to give him anymore “publicity”).
I promised Kellye Crane that I would write a post about what’s wrong with said person’s ideas of PR, but then I read a post by Heidi Cohen, 31 Public Relations Definitions, and was once again reminded that there is a larger issue within our industry.
It is not the first time we will be having this conversation, nor will it be the last. Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson discussed the issue of defining PR in regards to the relationship between PR marketing back in January 2010. (If you haven’t listened to this podcast, I promise it will be worth your time. Included in the debate is Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Valeria Maltoni, Bill Sledzik, Deirdre Breakenridge, Mitch Joel and me.)
What The Heck Is PR?
31 Definitions. Really! 31.
Does anyone else see anything wrong with that?
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Where have all the references gone?
I don’t know if you’ve notice, but over the past few weeks I’ve been commenting on Twitter about self-promotion and the need to bring it back. With the impetus of social media being towards limited, if any, self-promotion (unless I missed the memo that it was okay), I’ve notice that the pendulum for people engaged in social media has finally swung from 100% to 0%.
I don’t know about you, but I have about 5-8 people nationally that I feel confident referring for marketing, PR or social media consulting. Locally, it’s even less than that. For all the people I know on- and off-line, it’s a little sad that I have such a small pool of people to refer. And isn’t that the point of social media to build relationships that could potentially lead to referrals? That’s what we tell companies all the time, right?
What’s the issue? Sure, we all follow the social media “rules” and we try to build relationships with people first and foremost and that’s great…but then it falls apart.
The people that I feel comfortable referring are people that I met online first, then offline, and then they’ve shared links to their client work or have outright been a part of their clients’ campaigns online. I’ve been able to see their campaigns and get a 360 degree view of the person, how they think and their abilities. I’ve also had conversations with some of them about their campaigns or projects.
There are people who I follow on Twitter or Facebook that I that feel comfortable saying I know them pretty well, but honestly I have absolutely no clue where they work and/or what they have done as marketing, PR or social media professionals that would deserve a reference.
I have people asking me all the time to refer consultants, agencies or speakers on particular topics because, in their minds, I am “well connected.” And I am consistently drawing a blank, which, needless to say surprises most people.
Honestly, I have to question this “no self-promotion” rule and why we all (I am guilty of it too) make people feel SO uncomfortable to do so. It goes back to my favorite adage “people don’t know what they don’t know” and right now I don’t know what you all do.
I am not talking about blatant, outright self promotion…I hate that as much as the next person. But once we have gotten to know someone, haven’t they earned the right to share online with us the campaigns they are working on or a project they are proud of?
And yes, I get it…sometimes there are NDAs or confidentiality issues. But find a creative way to let us know what it is you are working on or what benefits you might provide a potential client/customer.
I’d like to be able to refer all the smart people I am connected with…but I need more than just knowing what you share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or your blog to be able to do that. I need some kind of evidence that you are strategic, tactical and deliver results so I can feel comfortable telling people to give you a call.
Please, help me out. I’d like to be able to provide references for you or your business. If we know each other and have connected either here on my blog or on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn let me know what you’ve been working on or share with me some of your recent campaigns/projects.
Anyone else having this issue? What can we do to help people get business or job referrals? Is the lack of self-promotion actually hurting us?
[Image: iStock]
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The Harte of Marketing by Beth Harte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.theharteofmarketing.com. [If you have a question about what you can use from this blog, click on the above Creative Commons link to learn more.]
