Social media is offering a terrific number of options for Public Relations practitioners generating news material – or material we used to call news. Citizen journalism is exciting. There are almost unlimited outlets.
As a starting point I think we need to point to the distinction between visibility and credibility.
There is sometimes the tendency for enthusiastic partitioners to pursue high visibility as an objective: ‘All publicity is good publicity’. In social and online media we see this all the time with silly tweets and with the inane (and irritating) questions being posed in LinkedIn groups.
As an objective we recommend that we don’t always want high visibility; we do always want high credibility. So in Public Relations we steer away from strategies designed to deliver only high visibility (usually with the hope that credibility will flow as a result).
This is an important concept for marketers who want to use Public Relations instead of advertising or for Public Relations practitioners who want to use the internet instead of traditional media. The temptation is to seniors to instruct juniors, “We want lots of stories, and no negative media please.”
Have a look at the diagram above designed by a close colleague of mine, Chris Sherbon of Synthesis Consulting.
- All companies start in the ‘Unknown’ space (it’s the necessary location for start-ups but only the desired hide-out for conmen, fraudsters and bank robbers);
- We can move to the right with some commentary designed to give us some visibility, with some quick hits, in the hope that later we can head up and develop a good reputation. That’s what we call the ‘Undesirable’ path, and beware, we may get stuck with a tacky reputation on the lower quadrant. Then you’ll be contacting us for some Crisis Public Relations because journalists are writing negative material.
- Or we can move up (the recommended path with credible well researched commentary) into the ‘Undiscovered’ quadrant, with less frequent but more credible media, and then veer to the left – when opportunity offers. But if we get stuck? Hey, it’s a better place to be: fewer customers but they all think you have a great reputation. And journalists, when they do write about you, are positive.
Exercise for followers of Public Relations and Crisis Management: Where does Julia Gilliard fit on that chart? And Tony Abbott? Your clients? You?
