Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Over the course of my communications career – too many years to mention, practicing in both agency and in-house environments – I am often surprised by the lack of communication among communications professionals. While we strive to develop strategic and effective communications for outward facing audiences, all too often we fail to communicate within our own organizations.
Today we know that for any company to be successful it needs to clearly communicate its brand and culture to its employees. By doing so, companies can provide an understanding of expectations and encourage greater individual autonomy within the organization. The effort to communicate – not just from top to bottom, but laterally – helps to improve employee morale and productivity, positively impacting the company’s bottom line.
Even if a company thinks it has the best intentions for encouraging communication and collaboration, it sometimes encounters barriers that prevent the sharing of information among peers. While the list of challenges to an internal communications effort is long, some of the worst offenders include territoriality over projects or activities, rivalry in competitive environments that pit teams or individuals against one another, and a general lack of motivation to communicate with peers that we may not know as well as others or have contact with regularly. Additional barriers to sharing and receiving information include personal values, generational and personality differences, gender and unrelated “noise” from individual personal lives such as family responsibilities, looming financial and social obligations, and the like.
While there is no “one size fits all” solution to the challenges impacting internal communications, here are a few tips to kick-start your effort to create an environment that encourages communication and collaboration:
Set the Tone During the Hiring Process
Before my first day at Communiqué PR, my bosses encouraged me to read the agency blog and provided expectations and historical information about the company that helped me to better understand the culture within the organization.
Talk it Out
During my first week, I enjoyed valuable 1:1 meetings where I was given with the agency’s mission and vision statements, reinforcing my understanding of the agency’s culture. During the meeting I received an individualized Performance Effectiveness Plan that outlined my responsibilities and allowed me to set specific, personal goals. The 1:1 meetings continue on a weekly basis, allowing me to revisit goals with my supervisor and to communicate any work-related concerns I might have. It’s my meeting and I set the agenda.
As a manager, I also believe it’s important to share with members of my teams the “bigger picture” objectives for the clients with whom we’re working. Limiting my colleagues’ knowledge to only “need to know” information encourages distance rather than engagement. Sharing broader objectives encourages individuals to be creative and feel confident exploring and suggesting strategies and tactics that are valuable to our overall effort.
Meet Your Team
Meetings are not a new concept, but in an agency environment where client service takes priority, sometimes internal communications get lost at the bottom of our to-do lists. Team meetings need to remain a priority. At Communiqué PR, we hold twice-monthly management and team lunch meetings during which everyone has the opportunity to share information about client activities and receive updates on agency business. Often, these discussions generate valuable brainstorming sessions among members and shed light on opportunities and challenges that may not have already been considered.
Get a Little Closer
Familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt; familiarity can encourage collaboration where it might otherwise be lacking. Get to know your peers during informal company-sponsored events and social activities. If your company doesn’t already have a plan in place for fun, team-building activities, offer to take ownership of planning these and encourage your peers to participate. Take a colleague out for coffee and learn more about their background and values. Building relationships with one another makes us more likely to offer help to a colleague when it’s most needed – none of us is in this game alone.
Use Your Tools
Technology has provided excellent tools for internal communications. The most obvious and a great way to back-up verbal communications is to send an email. Additionally, collaboration tools such as Smartsheet, help our team to organize, coordinate, prioritize and delegate client activities and company business.
Celebrate Your Success
Last but certainly not least, take time to celebrate your successes – no matter how small. Did you get that certain writer to respond to your pitch with interest? Success! Did the story actually get placed? Success! Did the client actually compliment you for a job well done? Success! When your colleagues are successful in their efforts, celebrate with them. Showing your interest in the efforts of your colleagues will go a long way in building relationships that ultimately result in better collaboration and communication and success for your company.
For several years we have heard a familiar refrain: Print journalism is on the decline, large news organizations are struggling, and much original reporting and storytelling is shifting to online-based outlets and blogs.
In mid-August, though, news broke that AOL planned to close a number of its Patch blogs, which had promised to deliver news and content on a hyper-local level. By the end of that week, the company had closed 150 of these blogs and laid off somewhere in the vicinity of 500 writers. The move may be an important step toward profitability for Patch, but it was jarring to see so many blogs shut down at once, especially when they have often been billed as the future of journalism.
Certainly, the fate, good or bad, of Patch doesn’t indicate that the role of blogs in reporting is suddenly on the decline. But it is a reminder that the media industry is constantly changing – and even areas considered new and trendy aren’t safe. What does this imply for public relations professionals?
Primarily, it means that beyond just pitching story concepts, PR teams need to be prepared to generate original content on behalf of their own companies and clients, and proactively push this content out more than ever.
At Communiqué, we’ve had success creating and distributing content in a number of ways. Here are a few places to start:
- Stay on top of editorial trends. With the closing of so many Patch sites, what are the other avenues we should be pursuing as PR professionals? Many cities and neighborhoods have their own hyper-local news blogs. Seattle’s own Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, for example, is thriving, and it continues to be an incredible source of neighborhood-level news and content. Sites like these prove the hyper-local news model can work very well.There are also some very interesting developments in the mobile space, like Quartz (QZ.com), a news site entirely optimized for mobile consumption. It’s very new – formed by Atlantic Media Company in 2012, and its staff covers business and economic trends. In the last year, it has picked up some heavy hitters in journalism, a sign of optimism for mobile-optimized news outlets. Then there’s Medium, a relatively new project from former Twitter CEO Ev Williams. Medium lets users create their own articles, short- or long-form, which are shared among both registered users and guests on Medium.com. It provides a simple online writing and editing interface, but is geared more toward thoughtful, cerebral writing than other services like Blogger. It also links with Twitter accounts, which can help raise the profile of your CEO or other leadership interested in authoring articles.
- Maintain, curate and share your own blog. It’s fairly standard for businesses to maintain a blog these days. Given how quickly the media environment can change, particularly online, maintaining a well-curated company blog can be a strong way to keep your message visible, controlled and positive. But if no one reads it, is it really helping? To be successful, you’ll need your team to share blog posts with stakeholders including journalists, customers and your own employees. That means it is critical that you…
- …Don’t fall asleep at the social media wheel. Blogs may come and go, but social media user-ship and influence continues to rise. The obvious choices – Twitter and Facebook – remain strong engagement, marketing and public relations tools. But don’t ignore other social media opportunities to share your content. LinkedIn has recently expanded the ways that companies and “influencer” users can post original articles. We’ve previously discussed this here. Other services, like Storify, let users create stories based around social media usage. And, while Google Plus may not be the trendiest platform this year, sharing your content on Google’s social network can help your content place higher in search results, making it a useful and relevant tool for all of us in the PR industry.
- Pitch bylined articles. Pitching contributed and bylined articles to editors is a tried and true PR tactic. It’s something that we have had continued success with at Communiqué PR, and we’ve seen the benefits for thought leadership and visibility for our clients. Pitching well-developed, thoughtful and timely pieces helps position your company as a leader and your PR team as a trusted source of information and content for reporters and editors.
- Be creative! More and more, PR teams are being asked to be the creative minds behind content, and that means thinking like an editor. What do people want to read? Sometimes, this means using visual content to your advantage, whether on your own blog or when pitching stories to media. This may mean developing click-through photo galleries, or pitching stories in the “listicle” format popularized by sites like Buzzfeed and Mashable.
The ever changing media landscape can create many challenges for PR teams, as we all know. Keeping track of the latest outlets, beats and blogs is hard. But each day, there are new opportunities to create and share content, like those detailed above. Staying on top of these opportunities is an exciting proposition for all of us at Communiqué PR!
An unfortunate report from the Oriella PR Network recently revealed that, quantitatively, journalists trust PR professionals slightly less than politicians. Yes, you read that right—even politicians come across as more trustworthy than PR pros. Much of it likely has to do with the changing media industry—as it becomes digital and fast-paced, journalists face incredible pressure and therefore have limited time and patience for askew pitches and unreliable sources.
This doesn’t mean the relationship between PR and journalism is doomed, however—the key is to make it mutually beneficial. With appropriate action, PR professionals can help relieve journalists’ stress and stand out as helpful, instead of unreliable. Clearly, if you are to be trusted, you need to be trustworthy. In the journalist-PR professional relationship, what does that trust look like? We offer the following tips for become a valuable, trusted source to journalists:
Be truthful. If we could stress one piece of advice in this whole post, it’s this: Don’t ever lie to a reporter. Lying is the quickest way to permanently kill the relationship. It seems obvious, but tell the truth—honesty and transparency are crucial. Be clear with expectations, capabilities, limitations and results. Don’t hide your intentions, misrepresent your client or beat around the bush. If you don’t know something or can’t confirm a piece of information, be honest and say so. And remember that embellishing the truth is lying, too—don’t falsely amp up a product or announcement for the sake of sensationalism.
Stick to your word. Deliver on your promises—no matter how small. After blatant lying, breaking a promise is the next best way to ensure a reporter never trusts you again. If you promise a quote, interview or story draft, give it. Stick wholeheartedly to agreed-upon deadlines. Stand out from the crowd by being timely, reliable and responsive. And, above all, don’t make a promise in the first place that you know you can’t keep.
Offer value. Not only should you promote a great product or client, but offering value includes offering creativity. An original, compelling story catered to a particular outlet is far more valuable than a mass-released story idea. Present the truth in an appropriate, helpful manner. Journalists have a job to do, and PR professionals’ job is to make it easier. If you offer them value with a great story, they’ll be more inclined to trust you—and likely won’t mind you asking for a product mention.
Admit mistakes. You’re human. You will make mistakes. If necessary, admit errors—as soon as you realize they’ve occurred, not when you’re called out. Admitting mistakes, despite the ramifications, shows integrity and honesty—traits that by nature make you more trustworthy. When you mess up, confess and be proactive in fixing the problem. Journalists will forgive an error, but they won’t forgive your trying to cover it up.
Have some respect. Respect is a basic foundation for establishing trust. Journalists are busy—respect their time and interests. Nobody trusts someone who’s blatantly over-pushing a product or idea. Take the time to understand their needs and motivations, and work to set them up for success. Be straightforward, compelling and to the point with your words. Avoid poorly written or boring press releases and pitches, spamming or hassling, and just blatant disregard for what journalists do. Make your offer a win-win for both parties and reporters will come to see you as helpful, rather than only trying to help yourself. Finally, respect their decisions—if they say no, thank them and move on.
For those of you still hung up on being seen as sleazier than a politician, don’t take it personally—instead, see it as an opportunity to prove yourself to be an honest, reliable source. As in any relationship, trust is required to maintain camaraderie between journalists and PR professionals. The best way to be seen as worthy of journalists’ trust? Develop a track record of trustworthy behavior, keeping the above tips in mind for success. Not only will journalists be more receptive to your pitches and ideas, but over time you just might find them reaching out to you to get the story.
I recently finished Sheryl Sandberg’s provocative book, “Lean In,” about gender differences in the workplace and her perspective on how to help right the inequalities. I am about the same age as Sheryl, and while our backgrounds are different, many of her points resonated with me. I find it astounding that there are only 21 women CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies — although I am not sure why it is such a surprise when we at Communiqué PR have only had a handful of clients with women CEOs.
I am truly optimistic for the young women that we have hired at Communique who are just beginning their careers. Some of them know they want to pursue a career in public relations, while others are going to work with us for a couple of years before branching out into new professions. Regardless of the path they choose to take, I want them to go forward, have equal opportunities and rise to new levels of leadership.
To this end, I think Sandberg book offers solid advice – for both men and women. Take the following three points as examples:
Sandberg writes, “Just as I believe everyone should have a long-term dream, I also believe everyone should have an eighteen-month plan.” This is a fantastic suggestion especially as it pertains to skill development. Effective leaders – male or female – must develop a wide range of skills including critical thinking, writing, negotiating, seeing the big picture, etc. Working toward such a skill range will likely take years, so thinking expansively about “what do I want to learn now and how does it fit into the bigger picture of my life” is sound advice that I am now actively applying to my own life and business.
Another chapter of Sandberg’s book focuses on the myth of doing it all. She writes, “Counterintuitively, long-term success at work often depends on not trying to meet every demand placed on us.” I could not agree more. Everyone knows it is impossible to be in two places at once. It is time we recognize that success is incumbent on figuring out where to be, what to focus on and how to accomplish it. It’s not always easy, but it is an important ability to master for men and women who want leadership positions, which are often high-pressure and more time-intensive than other middle-management roles.
In closing, Sandberg discusses how we can work together toward gender equality and how “feeling threatened by others’ choices pulls us all down.” Ideally, we would all aspire to a world that celebrates individual personal passions, talents and interests. At the same time, however, we need to realize that sometimes we as individuals have competing passions and talents. A fair amount of self-awareness is necessary to recognize and rectify ambitions that are clearly in conflict (e.g., I want to attend my niece’s school play and I want to participate in an important new business meeting.) By spending more time on introspection around their lives and priorities, I believe both men and women will have greater clarity and comfort about their choices.
While I think Sandberg offered excellent advice, I did find that my biggest criticism of the book centers on some of Sandberg’s use of personal examples. For instance, on page 20 Sandberg talks about how she still “feels it was unseemly for a little girl to be thought of as so…domineering.” She asserts that society thinks it is okay and even rewards boys for domineering behaviors, but not girls.
Sandberg goes on to emphasize that boys from a young age are encouraged to take charge and offer their opinions. While this may be true – and I hope girls will be encouraged to do the same – I think they both need to do it in a manner that is not domineering. I do not think people who are perceived as domineering make especially effective leaders, so let’s not put a premium on these types of characteristics, for males or females.
As a leader in my own business, I found the book to be insightful and full of practical advice. It is one that I will continue to refer to as I mentor men and women and continue on my own professional path. I applaud Sheryl for raising the issue and writing a thought- and discussion-provoking book.
It is always a treat when we get the opportunity to work with a client whose product meshes with our own personal passions.
This spring and summer we had the opportunity to work with Kaidel Sportswear, a Seattle-based sportswear company that designs Pacific Northwest-specific running and biking gear. I am very passionate about running and overall fitness, and growing up in the Pacific Northwest it is great to see the designs that Kaidel has come up with, often including designs from Seattle artists.
Photo courtesy of KaidelDuring a three-month engagement, Communiqué was tasked with helping Kaidel secure product reviews and event sponsorships to maximize exposure in the most efficient way possible. Given the active audience, events and product reviews seemed like ideal venues. This was a challenge for our team, and not our typical bread and butter. But fueled with our team’s passion for fitness and the outdoors, we were able to channel our creativity and exceed our goals essentially by leveraging existing relationships with media and local event producers, as well as reaching out to new contacts.
For the product reviews, we started with research to ensure we were targeting publications that 1) ran apparel-related product reviews and 2) were relevant to Kaidel’s audience. We identified a target list of mainly local publications and websites, and tailored our pitches to each one. Product reviews often require a lot of handholding and, despite initial interest from a particular journalist, we had to follow up frequently to ensure the review would see the light of day.
We also took creative approaches to landing product reviews, including partnering with Northwest Runner on a contest to give away a Kaidel Sportswear running jersey, which drove traffic to the Kaidel website. The contest winner also wrote a review of the jersey for the Northwest Runner website, further helping raise awareness.
We also secured a great review in Rave and Review, a popular family-oriented blog, and worked with the outlet to run a giveaway of a family pack of cycling jerseys. This helped shine the spotlight on Kaidel not only to the blog’s readers, but also to Rave and Review’s nearly 7,000 Twitter followers.
Finally, we took advantage of an opportunity with The Seattle Times’ Marketplace section, a Sunday insert that features new products. We were able to connect with the Kids’ Shop section, which ran a great piece highlighting Kaidel’s kids cycling jerseys.
For events, we reached out to Orswell Events, a local running and triathlon race producer, to explore in-kind sponsorship opportunities and secured a sponsorship at Orswell Events’ Shore Run and Walk, an annual race which draws more than 3,000 participants and volunteers. Kaidel provided shirts for the event’s post-race raffle and, in exchange, Orswell Events included Kaidel in its pre-race participant email, posted the Kaidel Sportswear logo on the event website, promoted Kaidel’s involvement via social media and provided on-site promotions for the company. Involvement in the Shore Run and Walk gave Kaidel exposure to a very targeted and key audience.
Our three-month engagement flew by, but overall we were pleased with the outcome. We secured excellent results (included below) and helped set the groundwork for additional reviews that may come to fruition toward the end of the year.
If you are a runner or biker, we encourage you to check out the Kaidel Sportswear jerseys. And yes, I am practicing what I preach—I bought the Seattle neighborhood running top for myself and my boyfriend and we love them!
Kaidel Sportswear Results
- In-kind sponsorship at Shore Run/Walk, June 9, 2013
- Northwest Runner Magazine, “Kaidel Sportswear Running Shirt Review,” July 2013
- Rave and Review, “Seattle style for the great outdoors from Kaidel Sportswear {family pack review & giveaway ARV$150},” August 8, 2013
- Seattle Times, “Cycle in Style with Local Jersey,” August 11, 2013
Communications professionals (including the Communiqué team) often tout corporate blogs as a way for businesses to create a voice, connect with their audience, drive thought leadership and increase website traffic. While this is all true, corporate blogs can become especially handy when a company has a crisis on its hands – especially if the company is a small to medium business that does not typically draw massive media attention.
When a company like Microsoft or Apple has a crisis on its hands, any statement it publishes on its website will be widely distributed and rehashed in the media. However, when a smaller to medium- sized business is embroiled in a controversy, this might not be the case. And, smaller businesses can still be involved in media crises – whether it be a bout of food poisoning from a franchise of restaurants, a hack of a company’s information, or the behavior of an employee (like the recent twitter controversy between food truck Milk Truck’s employee with Glass Lewis & Co.). Having, and making use of, a corporate blog can be an effective way for smaller to medium businesses to handle crises. Why?
- Blogs provide a platform for an immediate response. Journalists and consumers alike might ask for an official statement if your business’ name is brought into a scandal, and by publishing a blog post you can articulate your perspective, clarify any inaccurate information and explain what you are going to do in response to the situation. And, with your own blog have control when it goes out – you can post it immediately.
- You can share your unfiltered point of view. Your blog presents the opportunity to tell your story, your way, and to get your perspective and point of view across. No, this is not the time to play the blame game – you’ll still want to abide by crisis communications best practices (see “What Not To Do in Crisis Communication,” for more insight). However, you’ll be able to clearly communicate your business’ involvement in the crisis.
- You create authenticity. A blog is a vessel for you to speak to consumers, media, investors and other interested parties. While the blog may have been carefully crafted, it does not have the deflected feeling that an official press release might create. Rather, readers are getting your opinion, emotions and voice, which will come off as a more real reaction, rather than a stiff corporate one.
- Blogs remove the middleman. Rather than interested or affected parties hearing about the crisis from an outside source, they’ll hear directly from you. A lot can be misconstrued in a chain of communication; much better to deliver the news yourself, in the way you want it delivered.
If your business is in the midst of a crisis, or you are simply looking for ways to prepare, consider creating a blog or how you might leverage an existing corporate blog. A blog can be a great way to reach consumers and media alike, and to control the message your company is putting out about an issue at hand.
For more on crisis communications from Communique PR, see:
For more on corporate apologies, see:
- The Art of the Corporate Apology, Forbes
- Best Corporate Apology Ever Posted on Twitter?, AdWeek
- Apple’s Map Fail and More Corporate Apologies, The Daily Beast
- Tim Cook Apologizes for Apple’s Maps, the New York Times: Bits