How do you Do PR Without Looking Like You're Selling Something?

People flee sellers, especially in a bad economy.

Public relations was born and thrived for many years on the wave of mass media - newspapers, television news, and magazines, for example. It's quite logical to think that if you get someone else to talk about how great your company is, then you are much more likely to gain public trust. Gaining trust helps you sell your products better.

In a connected world, citizen journalists will also begin and continue to gain credibility and trust. While the demands for news of so many online communities continues to grow, we're already seeing many start to view certain bloggers and peers as filters.

By definition, public relations is the art and science of establishing relationships between your organization and its key audiences. You gain exposure to groups and individuals by using useful topics and timely content directly and through third parties, while no money exchanges hands.

I associate PR closely with branding, they're both about behavior and reputation, sort of the organization infrastructure on top of which sit applications like sales and product development [h/t Ron Shevlin]. In that light, then, how do you do PR without looking like you're selling something?

What do you want from PR?

Decide what kinds of relationships you're looking to develop and also what kind of behaviors you're willing to exhibit. When people talk about transparency, what they're really looking for is if you'll do what you say you'll do. That will be the starting point for a strategy.

What resources are you willing to commit?

I find that by far the greatest challenge organizations face today is that of committing resources to developing relationships at the Grail of leads. The biggest opportunity companies are missing is internal. Do you have a network inside your organization? Whenever I ask this question at events where I speak, no hands go up. Why? Something that is seen as long term with (potentially) no fast results in the short term.

People answer that it's not on their goals to chat someone in development up, for example. Let's not kid ourselves, people, a) if you want to become valued, you need to make the time to mingle with many in the organization at different levels to gain insights into what they know and what your role could be, b) if you want to build relationships, you need to be in it for the long haul.

Set goals

How are you going to get there? Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. If you set them up that way, you'll be able to track how you're doing towards them. To help with goal setting, start with understanding the people you're trying to reach. What are they looking to learn?

Execute

This is usually where the best laid out plans fall apart. If you run a search, you will find that the terms business strategy give you 7.9MM entries (I use inverted commas) and business execution only a little more than 88k. Why the disparity? Everyone likes to be a strategist, yet the money is in the execution - and that's where the hard work is, too.

Execution is not making lame pitches on Twitter.

Re-evaluate goals in light of interim progress

Since we're talking about a long term strategy, it's a good idea to check in on goals frequently so you can adjust your aim and activity mix. I find deltas helpful - two columns, a) What did we do well? b) What could be do better? In much new media the feedback is instantaneous, and public. You'll be able to capture it, if you're listening.

Execute some more

When you deal with the community in a new  media space, thus mostly public, demonstrating you learned from feedback gives you major props at the moment. There will come a time when etiquette will be understood, and you'll be held to much closer scrutiny over not respecting the time and attention people and their communities give you.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

More than one year ago, I talked about the Web presence of the future being composed in thirds - community building, marketing, and editorial impact. This diagram will hopefully help you see the intersections. On demand means as pulled by the community or people, when they decide they want it, which doesn't necessarily mean real time. The other two are fairly self-explanatory.

And let's not ever forget that just because we may be trying all these new technologies and adopting them, our customers or the people we're working to build relationships with are, too.

Your conversation. Where do you se the role of PR as being most effective in the next Web?

© 2006-2009 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Bruce Christensen]

Valeria,
After reading your post,I pull four letters out of the words: Public Relations.
R E A L...
Real work and commitment, that leads to a great product that real people will love.
Real human connections that support lasting relationships and trust in those who might share your product with others.
Real passion for the product, so that you have the desire to execute in the best possible ways.
It is a real person that we want to touch with our message, and that real person will eventual measure our words by the performance of the product that we share with them.

[Deni Kasrel]

Valeria,
You offer good insight into the inner workings of PR and how the various pieces intersect.

Your point about commitment to resources is one that I have noted in my own experience as being often neglected. Too many silos. As you point out, authentic effective PR does not just come from the PR department, it needs to pervade an organization. And it needs to be cultivated from within, not be put upon others.

Also, it is interesting to note in these times when social media is becoming so much a part of the PR paradigm, there is a lot of chatter regarding the need to put the public back in public relations. Less noted, though you have done so here, is to recognize the other half of the term -- you need to focus on relationships, too.

[Gail Nelson]

Great points! -- Exactly why I love reading your blog.

What resonates with me: These days, especially given the explosion of social media, effecitve PR is about empowering entire organizations, not just a select few who pitch the media. And ideas and strategy alone will never win hearts and minds or build a brand. It's "elbow grease" as my grandmother used to say.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Bruce - that is a wonderful direction for the thinking that was behind it. Real work is hard, much harder than talk, although it can start as such. I like how tangible real is. I've been thinking along this vein lately, as it will become apparent in posts this week.

@Deni - it's a good preparation ground for social media to understand that type of commitment. Internally, you're often making it work on the basis of relationships, too. PR is not on everyone's goals, just those of the person or people working it. Yet, it's about the whole business, what it knows, and what it does, so it needs to involve professionals and technical experts at many levels.

@Gail - your grandmother's wisdom endures.

[Tom Gable]

These are great ideas on strategies and tactics for executing a public relations program. However, I’d suggest that much more time needs to be invested up front on planning to develop image and reputation as a part of corporate strategy. What does the organization stand for? What are its core values? If it positions itself as providing the highest quality of customer service and a commitment to the communities it serves, can it deliver on the promise over time? Are internal policies and procedures aligned with the achieving the desired image over the next few years? Can it walk the talk and demonstrate proof of principle, as the engineers or scientists would say? The corporate commitment to core values and authenticity become the unifying forces that drive great PR -- building relationships with many important audiences and then reinforcing the relationships through continuous, creative communications and positive actions.

Tom Gable
APR, PRSA Fellow

[Christian]

I have to respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree with you that "people flee sellers, especially in a bad economy". People flee sellers who have no tact or grace in their approach, and this is true no matter what's happening in the economy. A proper approach to sales is a true service to the consumer, and it is perceived as such also. It is appreciated. It is also profitable. It is also recession-proof.

The reason I feel this way beyond just a semantic disagreement is because selling is a foundational component of any successful business. Avoiding sales and focusing on marketing is to ignore a vital business component, which is the lifeblood of most small businesses.

The whole "selling without selling" mentality is just another way of avoiding learning how to sell with tact and grace. Learning the art of sales is a crucial element that will serve small business owners well and make their livelihood impervious to any downturn the economy wants to throw their way.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Tom - some call it integrity (do what you say you'll do, I rather like this definition), recently I'm hearing alignment a lot. Maybe because the social media gold rush by organizations is shining a bright light on the internal house, so to speak. Thank you for contributing and extending the conversation.

@Christian - people flee PR folks who sell, too. That's not their role. Everyone sells, if not good, ideas, all day long. The hallmark of a great sales person is being a top notch listener. In fact, look at a rapid and successful career and you'll see an accomplished listener. Public relations is the art and science of establishing relationships between an organization and its key audiences. While the ultimate purpose is to help the organization do business, it deals more with communicating, negotiating, and building a conversation between the organization and its publics. One last thought on sales - tact and grace alone don't cut it. You could be very tactful and graceful, but if you have no knowledge of the product or service, no sale. Thank you for arguing, good thoughts.