Institute of Public Relations, Ghana First IPR Professional Seminar

Transcription

1 Institute of Public Relations, Ghana First IPR Professional Seminar Course Title CUTTING EDGE MEDIA RELATIONS FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS Course Content Developing an effective Media Policy Using Social Media to build good relations Effective Media Releases Facilitator: Kweku Rockson Website: Date: 23 rd February, 2016 Time: 4pm-6pm Venue: IPR Secretariat

2 1.0 Developing an effective Media Policy

3 1.0 Developing an effective Media Policy 1.1. Introduction What is PR? PR is a management function that establishes effective two-way lines of communication, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation between the organization and its public stakeholders.(belasen, 2008). PR executives oversee external affairs and react to issues raised by the public. They scan the environment for possible threats and inform the organisation about evolving issues.

4 A basic PR imperative is to improve the motivation, the opportunity and the ability of all designated stakeholders to process the organisation s messages. Effective PR assists in enhancing internal and external relationships and leads to greater organisational stability. The main function of Corporate PR, however, is to enhance organisational reputation. In many organisations PR and media relations (MR) are therefore integrated.

5 Corporate Communications (Corpcomm) It is an integral part of the strategic management process in which the entity s mission and goals are communicated explicitly to the stakeholders. Corporate philosophy can be gleaned from the vision of the entity which shows what the company will become for organisational success. The mission establishes a common ground between the company and its employees.

6 Strategic corporate communication Central, integrated, externally oriented framework of how the organization intends to obtain its stated objectives. The strategy serves as the basis for organising, implementing and evaluating communication activities within and outside the organisation. Corporate Communication is a management function that offers a framework and vocabulary for the effective coordination of all means of communications with the overall purpose of establishing and maintaining a favourable reputation with stakeholder groups upon which the organisation is dependent (Cornelissen, J; 2004)

7 Three concepts form the cornerstones of Corpcomm o o o Stakeholders Identity Reputation Stakeholder management facilitates the ability of organisations to manage within the current business environment. Organisations need to deal with a variety of claims and interests of stakeholder groups in the environment and also profile a coherent corporate identity of itself and all others.

8 Corporate identity involves the self representation of an organization through communications, products and services and employee behaviour. This is based on the basic, distinct and enduring values of an entity that guides its operations and when figuring communications, set it apart from the competition in the eyes of important stakeholder groups. Ways in which stakeholder groups regard and value the organization is defined as corporate reputation is in line with the communicated corporate identity and thus broadly consistent with the way in which the organization wants itself to be understood.

9 What is Media Relations? The Competing Value Framework for Corporate Communication (CVFCC) represents the four perspectives on communication: o Media Relations (MR) o Investor Relations (IR) Government Relation (GR) o Employee Relations (ER) Marketing communication focuses on media relations, corporate advertising, issues management, public relations, community relations, customer relations and reputation management.

10 Financial communication entails investor relations, image management, legal communication, strategy communication, external affairs, performance management and crisis management. Organizational communication concentrates on government relations, field communication, codification and integration and compliance communication. Management communication focuses on employee relations, culture and change communication, site communication, HRM and social identity communication.

11 MR involves outward communication which enhances an entity s goal. It is about keeping up with the prevailing market trends. The corporate entity must be current to show the specific opportunities which are worth pursuing and those which are not. It also shows the customers and stakeholders who will be captured. MR undertakes corporate advertising since it includes the promotion of the entire organization

12 Corporate advertising is key to retaining customers and stakeholders Such boundary spanners like marketing and customer relations personnel relay to the organization information about current trends and changes. They develop a good and continued working linkage with media personnel contracting them in a timely manner with news and updated information.

13 MR expects communicators to be creative, inspiring and adaptive in establishing a professional and productive relationship with the press. Corporate communication needs to offer a creative approach to information dissemination to the media keeping in mind how such information can affect the organisation s image. Creating an open and friendly relationship with the media offers an opportunity for the Corpcomm staff to become resource persons that the media can turn to before going public with a story.

14 MR must understand the media s needs and offer it with information which is timely, interesting, newsworthy and presented in a straight forward and usable format Establish press contacts and manage MR efforts Corporate reputation shows stakeholders and customers overall evaluation of an entity overtime, an evaluation based on direct experience with the company, any other forms of communication and symbolism that provide information about the firm s actions, and/or comparison with the actions of other leading rivals.

15 Corporate reputation is an important strategic differential. Managing a corporate reputation through MR is important especially because society sees the world through the lenses of the mass media. Organisations with a large portion of their PR budgets devoted to reputation management tend to have stronger reputations than those that focused primarily on marketing and sales.

16 Where companies focus on managing relationships with non-customer publics or reputation management as a guiding philosophy, they end up having a strong reputation. Corporate advertising can also depict issue advocacy which hints at MR as the issues manager. In most organisations PR and MR are integrated, with MR playing two roles: originator and facilitator of news.

17 Communicating with the media is an important organizational function, because good relations with the media offers the opportunity to set the record straight or put facts into a clearer and more objective context. Openness and accessibility are important PR strategies. Allowing media access to entities allows reporters to understand and explain the interests of the organization while positively influencing external perceptions and corporate image.

18 MR Directors should provide accurate facts and statistics which help strengthen the arguments on behalf of the entity while eliminating opportunities for the press to misconstrue information. The media can be used effectively if the MR utilizes these media to shape messages to its target audience.

19 1.2 Building better relations with the media Take time to cultivate a relationship with the right people in the media Avoid sending out media releases (or video news releases) to a mass audience Many media releases are not touched by editors because they are too many and editors have time constraints

20 1.3 Developing an Effective Media Policy The MR role as a reputation driver/manager is to market the goals and objectives of an entity in the way that it will align various stakeholders with a powerful and consistent image. The purpose of MR is to build a positive reputation and encourage the branding of the corporate identity of the organization among all stakeholders and customers where applicable. Attracting new customers and stakeholders and retaining the present ones are two major goals pursued by corporate advertisers to help support the financial goals of the entity.

21 Corporate messages should be channelled through the traditional media and the new and social media through the press releases, interviews with reporters and distribution of corporate brochures MR is undertaken by boundary-spanning staff who serve as a buffer between the entity and the larger society, screening out areas not useful to the organization The MR should be aligned to the Mission and Vision and strategic direction of the organization. A basic understanding of PR, Corpcomm and MR is a pre-requisite.

22 Media and Media Personnel Mapping, Identification and Engagement should be undertaken. Determine the Favourable, Unfavourable and Neutral Media Media Personnel (MP) Determine what to communicate. This must be very newsworthy. Identify the various professionals for the various activities, issues and crises. The media is both a constituency and a conduit through which investors, suppliers, retailers etc. receive information about and develop images of a company.

23 Identify the various in-house professionals for the various activities, issues and crises. Prepare an Action and Implementation Plan for MR with monitoring and evaluation (ME) and financial components. MR unit/department is one of the most critical areas within Corpcomm. Determine the particular media platform for each situation and the message

24 Media Engagement Tactics: Establish a media network for your entity. Determine whether there will be any Compensation Scheme for the media: Give money for transport; honorarium, provide yearly hampers, gifts or takeouts. Determine the period for the period for the MRP and a review. For s, voice mails, several of such are sent to media house and media personnel use only a small percentage.

25 2.0 Using Social Media to build good relations

26 2.0 Using Social Media to build good relations Identify and map the various new and social media outlets for your organisation. Following your stakeholder identification, mapping and engagement determine the particular new or social media for the various stakeholders. Apart from your various stakeholders isolate the media and give them the necessary attention. Use such new and social media to engage with all the stakeholders including the media.

27 Use scientific means to measure the extent of the engagement and also the number of hits as far as the stakeholders and the media are concerned. Social Media Strategy Communication and Social Media A. Which social media (SM) tools are most appropriate for achieving your goals? a. Each platform has specific functions, audiences and capabilities. b. Create an account for every platform.

28 B. Effective messaging a. Straight to the point and use links and images for enhancement. b. Use plain English and avoid wonky technical language. c. Be conversational and understandable. Build an Audience and followers on SM a. Building an audience and follower base is important and takes time. b. Look out for the number of LIKES for FB and TWITTER followers as primary indicators of success.

29 Managing SM Accounts a. Update accounts regularly b. Use a content management tool c. Follow and like new accounts regularly e. Create lists of user accounts on Twitter Develop a Social Media Policy o What are the challenges and potential changes associated with SM? o How do you deal with/manage the content that various staff members post or send out?

30 o What is considered an appropriate post by an employee? o Are there personal and professional lives for an employee? These are important questions which call for clearly defined answers An SM policy allows you to clean up any confusion by offering clear guidelines for what should be done or what should not be done on SM. A good policy outlines the entity s values and SM goals and the responsibilities that employees have.

31 Measure Effectiveness SM managers wonder about impact within the organizational settings. o Are we getting any return on our investment? For measurement purposes for an effective SM strategy, go back to your goals and define markers to track progress. Aiming for growth calls for constant reflection and restrategising. As you monitor and evaluate you will adapt it to incorporate those which work and improve on those which are not.

32 3.0 Effective Media Releases

33 3.0 Effective Media Releases 3.1 Introduction Media relations is the function reflected by communication targeted at the external stakeholders/public etc., aimed at pushing the agenda of the entity. The issue is TO WHAT EXTENT IS THE COMMUNICATION INSIGHTFUL, MIND STRETCHING, AND VISIONARY? The goal of MR is to project a positive reputation and assist in the branding of the entity s identity based on its broad mission and vision.

34 Corporate messages should be channelled through TV, newspapers, radio and the new and social media. Every organization aims at delivering the corporate message through Media Releases Interviews Distribution of fact sheets, brochures, Q)& A s etc. The bulk of the work is undertaken by Boundary Spanners who liaise between the entity and media men.

35 Such executive should provide the media with timely, comprehensive and updated news always. Though VERY EFFECTIVE, media releases are overused because they are easy to write and appear to follow a template or formula when it comes to its composition. For some sectors, the sentences could be anything from four to twenty seven. Media releases should be about interesting events which an outsider will enjoy reading about your company and where appropriate should include quotations which will create a more complete, comprehensive and favourable image of the organisation which is sending it.

36 Avoid sending out press releases for relatively ordinary events, promotions etc. in the company since the market is already saturated. The issue is that the measure of success has been hinged on the amount of ink (or coverage) that a company gets, whether aided by in-house executives or a consultant.

37 There has been no attempt to determine the value of a hit in relatively unimportant publications as far as the firm s general communications strategy or specifically the communication objective is concerned. Do not overuse mass-mailed releases. Use them for stories which will really inevitably attract the attention of a mass audience. Find out who the right journalist or media house for a given story.

38 Conduct research for targeting media. First determine the objectives for the story. Is it to create awareness about the activity or more and how it fits into the company s national or global strategy? Also identify those who cover your industry or your company in particular. Such reporters may have a direct or indirect link with your company. Determine who will be interested or more importantly, who will write a balanced story (code for a favourable account) about the company s activity.

39 Organisations can improve on their relationships with the media through the manner they deal with requests for information in a timely fashion. 3.2 Preparing for Media Interviews Once the research and analysis is complete, the company representative needs to be prepared for the actual meeting with the media person. The MR person should sit in on the interview.

40 The executive should be given a briefing on the media person or the producer s previous work to provide an understanding of the reporter s point of view. A trial run with the executive will be necessary and when it is TV, a full-dress rehearsal will be called for. He/she must explore the most interesting approach to dealing with the media. You can use statistics, analogues and anecdotes. Get complex ideas into a compact form that the general public can understand. Keep answers short and think in 10-second bites for the electronic media.

41 3.3 Production of Fact Sheets/Questions and Answers (Q&A) Fact sheets are important sources of information about an organisation. They should be well designed and should contain important information which will be of interest to the media when it comes to producing a story. Another way of providing information to the media is through the production of a Q&A.

42 It often has frequently asked questions about the organisation and in the process of answering these questions credible and responsive answers are provide for the attention of the public. 3.4 Class Exercise Media Releases o Prepare a media release from your organisation about newsworthy Event or Issue or Discovery or New Product or New Appointment

43 Interviews References Argenti, P.A.(2003) Corporate Communication,3 rd Edition McGraw Hill, New York Belasen, A.T.(2008) The Theory and Practice of Communication. A Competing Values Perspective". Sage Publications, Los Angeles. Cornelissen, J. (2004) Corporate Communications. Theory and Practice Sage Publications, London

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