Samoilenko, S.A., Ballard-Reisch, D., & Akhatova, B. (2011). Evaluating Employer Communication Competency Expectations in Kazakhstan. Research Study presented November 18 at the 97th Annual Conventional of the National Communication Association in New Orleans, LA.
In the age of globalization and social media there is increased demand for a new type of communication practitioners capable of adapting to rapid organizational change and constantly emerging online communities. These specialists should not only be familiar with numerous social tools available, but also understand the importance of ethical choices when using these tools and applications. Clearly, organizational efficiency goes beyond acquiring instructional knowledge or simply demonstrating mechanistic skills. According to Pamela Shockley-Zalabak (2009), communication competency develops from an increased understanding of the communication process; ability to sense accurately the meanings and feelings of oneself and others in the organization; improved skills in communication, conflict management, and decision making; and finally, a well-defined sense of organizational and interpersonal ethics.
In their roles as counsel to the CEO or manager of company’s reputation, professional communicators are expected to define and instill company values; build and manage multi-stakeholder relationships; enable the enterprise with “new media” skills and tools; and finally, build and manage trust. The adoption of this framework is particularly intended for education and training providers responsible for successful professional development of the next generation of professional communicators. The role of educators, therefore, is to help students understand new roles and responsibilities of public relations practitioners and provide them with adequate training to cultivate fundamental communication competencies reflective of changes of the industry.
In many countries there is a steady need for competent public relations professionals to assure nation-building inter-ethnic campaigns locally and public diplomacy efforts internationally. Kazakhstan is one of the most successful Central Asian countries among those that emerged from the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Kazakhstan represents an interesting example of a complex, inter-ethnic society working rapidly to adjust to globalization in order to keep up with constantly emerging professional requirements. The rapid growth of the oil and gas industries has significantly contributed to economic growth and decline in poverty. It also increased government public diplomacy efforts for nation branding to promote the country among international businesses and the global political community.
Communication researchers Sergei Samoilenko, George Mason University and Dr. Deborah Ballard-Reisch from Wichita State joined their colleague from Kazakhstan Dr. Akhatova to assess of the quality of the public relations education recently offered in Kazakhstan universities to satisfy the government ambitions for international recognition and acceptance. Primarily, the researchers wanted to understand current expectations held by business employers in Kazakhstan regarding important communication competencies that university graduates with a degree in public relations should possess in order to be successful in their organizations. Their research was intended to provide practical guidelines for educators to develop new curricula in strategic communications that will help Kazakhstan universities better prepare future communication specialists and increase opportunities for their employment.
The research team utilized a multi method survey with qualitative and quantitative components, which was distributed to over hundred chief communication officers or those holding upper management positions in public relations. The survey dealt with professionals’ expectations regarding crucial communication competencies that university graduates with a degree in public relations should possess in order to be successful in their organizations.
The researchers designed a communication competency instrument based on the organizational communication competency framework developed by Shockley-Zalabak (2009). The Shockley-Zalabak (2009) model consists of four major components: knowledge (the ability to understand the organizational communication environment), communication skills (various abilities to accurately analyze organizational situations and to effectively initiate, develop, disseminate and receive organizational messages), sensitivity (the ability to accurately understand organizational meanings and appropriately analyze roles and relationships, and values (understanding how individual and organizational values/ethics can shape organizational climate).
According to research findings, the discussed four criteria showed moderate to strong correlations (as seen in the accompanying iconographic below), while 54% of the variance in skills was explained by the three predictors (knowledge, sensitivity and values).
The potential employers also identified college degree, professional standards, language skills, and psychology, as the most important knowledge criteria for young professionals; creativity, flexibility, adaptability, the ability to decrease stress, sociability, and diplomacy, as the most important sensitivity criteriacompetence; using newinformation technologies, relationship building, self-control, ability to initiate dialogue, persuasion, and negotiation as the most important skills criteria for young professionals; and being reliable, responsible, punctual, diligent, and versatile, as the most important values criteria for young professionals.
The grounded inductive analysis of qualitative data produced seven major themes:
1) Communication skills: oral/written communication skills, the ability to interact effectively in interpersonal through public speaking contexts as well as in business communication
2) Building quality relationships
3) Knowledge of and support for the advancement of the corporate image
4) Ethical business practices
5) Training: including formal education and continuing, on-going skill development
6) Technical competence
7) Personal characteristics
The following should be noted:
Employers surveyed for this project recognized the importance of knowledge, skills, sensitivity and values in their practices. In their open-ended responses, participants elaborated on nature and characteristics of these constructs in culturally and contextually unique ways.
There are several discrepancies between quantitative and qualitative results in this research. While in their open ended responses, employers discussed the importance of education and ongoing professional development to the quality and capacity of communications professionals, when asked direct questions about the importance of education and professional organizations, they rated them as having little or no importance. This indicates that while business professionals recognize the importance of the skills learned through education and professional organizations, they do not yet recognize the role of formal education and ongoing training in the development and refinement of desired skills.
The lack of a developed communication discipline in Kazakhstan has led to a lack of understanding of the importance of the discipline to the business sector.
That knowledge, sensitivity and values account for 54 percent of the variance in skills demonstrates the interrelated nature of these constructs and the importance of knowledge, sensitivity and values as the foundation for skill development.
Uniqueness in the results of this study indicate the need for international consultants and collaborators to remain culturally sensitive as they attempt to assist Kazakhstan in the development of the academic discipline of public relations and work to identify the critical communication competencies of public relations and human resources professionals. Assessment measures must be evaluated and tailored appropriately to meet the needs of the culture in Kazakhstan.
The authors recommend that universities offering the major in public relations seek opportunities to collaborate with employers and communications professionals to assure that curriculum is developed and skills critical to the success of business and organizations are at the core of university and professional training in public relations and human resources. Reciprocally, professionals and employers of human resources and public relations workers should also seek opportunities for collaboration with universities to assure the overall quality of the entry-level public relations and human resources specialists.
Educators should seek ways to develop common norms and standards for, public relations education that would pertain to communication competency criteria. Since the range of required criteria pertaining to the development of necessary knowledge, skills, sensitivity and values is relatively broad, the introduction of communication education as an autonomous discipline at Kazakh universities is highly recommended. Active involvement in professional national and international communities, and on-going professional education will help improve the overall quality of public relations curriculum, textbooks and resources and class activities.
Following the preliminary results of this study, the Kazakhstan Communication Association (KazCA) was founded. The mission of the new organization was to bring together specialists representing various fields (mass communications, journalism, political science, sociology, linguistics, etc) who are interested in helping establish communication as a scholarly discipline in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
On June 27, 2011 KazCA held its first international conference. The conference discussed several initiatives pertaining to promoting the image of Kazakhstan in the global community, creating a communicative model for social development, and using communication research to address sociocultural, political and economic problems in the context of globalization.
Note: Sergei Samoilenko and Deirdre Breakenridge are working on a new version of Communication Competency instrument to replicate this study in the United State this summer. If you are interested in participating in their research, please email Sergei at sergeisamoilenko@gmail.com or visit his new blog at http://sergeisamoilenko.wordpress.com/
The iconographic below was designed by SMM3, Communication Consulting Company http://smm3.org/ from Belarus specializing in Social Media Marketing, Monitoring and Analysis in Post-Soviet Countries and Eastern Europe.
It’s a graduation celebration and you’re invited! On May 16, 2012 at 8:30 p.m. EST, #PRStudChat will be honor the graduating class of 2012, and be recapping a terrific year with our students, professors and PR professionals. Our graduates will face exciting new PR opportunities, as well as industry challenges ahead. With so much to look forward to, we wanted to send them off with insight and advice as they pursue their new career endeavors.
In the spirit of graduation, we thought a terrific way to celebrate would be to bring back one of our past #PRStudChat graduates; he’s out in the work world now and ready to share his experience with our community. Kion Sanders, who graduated from the University of North Carolina, is now working at MTV, as a social media coordinator. Kion will join us as a graduation speaker to offer his insight on different work initiatives and challenges on the job. At the same time, as a community, we can look back and reflect on the year filled with our favorite stories, projects, resources, obstacles and advice to help our graduates, as they transition into their new roles.
Here’s a little more about our graduation speaker:
Kion Sanders works at MTV Networks as a social media coordinator. His professional experience includes: political communications, grass roots marketing, consumer public relations, media relations and training, event planning, social media marketing and corporate communications. Kion blogs at “They Call Me Social K,” which is a community for communicators, marketers, small business owners, students, social media addicts and the casual Internet browser to converse about marketing and branding.
We’re looking forward to celebrating the graduating class of 2012, reflecting on the year and wishing our students well, as they venture into new career opportunities. We hope you will join us on the 16th and be a part of the #PRStudChat commencement program. “See” you at the party!
A Little More About PRStudChat:
It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals… A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more
One of my favorite new practices, which is outlined in my book, Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional, is PR Practice #5: The Pre-Crisis Doctor. To continue with my edited or cut chart series, today’s post discusses the Pre-Crisis Doctor chart of responsibilities, and the many new roles PR professionals undertake, as they move from PR crisis managers to Pre-Crisis Doctors. As I stated in my book, Pre-Crisis Doctors are the PR professionals who, “… proactively monitor social media conversations and track the sentiment of customers and other stakeholders when conversations are under control.” Pre-Crisis Doctors do not wait until the crisis escalates to neutralize the situation, and they use technology wisely to stay abreast of any rising negative sentiment.
You can see from the wheel visual below that there are several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn, as the Pre-Crisis Doctor, in your own company. The Pre-Crisis Doctor uses a different strategic process to prevent a negative situation from gaining momentum. Of course, the ideal scenario would be to stop the negative from ever starting, however, due to the nature of social media this is highly unlikely.
Therefore, as a Pre-Crisis Doctor, it’s your responsibility to catch the negative sentiment, at a point when you’re able to react swiftly. You should have several resources in place, which includes everything from your company’s social media crisis organizational chart and the shell of the message to your measurement tools and key influencers to help keep the public updated with the most recent information.
Here’s how the responsibilities break down in your new practice:
Create an Org Chart of Key Social Contacts
PR professionals are very familiar with the org chart, which provides the communications and reporting structure in a company. However, building a social media crisis organizational (org) chart gives the framework for who is involved at every different level of crisis escalation. The most common social media crisis org charts start with a bottom layer of social media activity and who is involved (no pending crisis) and works all the way to the highest level of crisis (full blown crisis) at which point your CEO, Chief Reputation Officer, Board of Directors or Cabinet may be directly involved in the situation at hand.
Develop the Shell of the Message
When it comes to social media communications, it’s difficult to have every type of message planned because each crisis situation varies and will warrant a different approach, depending on the issue and the social media channel. However, your company should know the shell of the message based on company policies, positions and ethics, which can be crafted to meet the requirements and culture of the communications channel. It’s always best to anticipate what could happen through each channel, and then go on the offense with your proactive messages.
Tech Test Tools for Crisis
You will need to identify the best tools, resources and platforms to help you track rapid communication during a crisis. Your tools will also allow you to determine whether or not the crisis communications strategy is working to move the negative sentiment to neutral or positive. It’s imperative to research, demo, trial and test your technology long before a crisis begins. When you’re in the height of crisis, that’s not the time to be deciding the best resources to put in place. In addition, the tools you select should be easy for your team to use (tested beforehand), and also allow them to create the charts and reports appropriate for executives who are watching the situation closely.
Build a Comment Response Chart
PR professionals are learning to listen closely to the dialogue of customers, media, bloggers, etc., whether it’s positive praise, product questions, service issues, organizational concerns or outright anger. As Pre-Crisis Doctors, they analyze how to move through different scenarios, as these conversations are documented and placed into “conversations buckets.” Building these conversation buckets becomes the infrastructure of your Comment Response Chart, or a decision tree. The Comment Response Chart helps professionals to determine how to handle various situations through a series of yes/no questions, which is a monitor/evaluate/respond strategy.
Integrate Department Crisis Plans
Because social media moves across the company, PR pros have to integrate the social media crisis plan to work in harmony with other departments, during a crisis situation. For example, customer service is an area that’s speaking directly to the customer, and there is a hierarchy of who in customer service will speak with a stakeholder, depending on the level of crisis escalation. Today’s social media crisis plans must take into consideration how different departments in the company, and employees in all positions, must be aware of crisis measures and directing communication to the appropriate contacts.
Identify Key Media / Bloggers
In the past, crisis managers built their plans realizing the importance of identifying and prioritizing media contacts that they would alert at the onset of a crisis. These journalists would also help to keep the public informed with updated information. The focus used to be solely on the media. However, today we include bloggers as powerful influencers during a crisis situation. One key reason to build strong relationships is when crisis strikes and negative sentiment runs rampant, you have an outlet to tell your company’s side of the story.
Review New Crisis Measurement
One of your crisis strategies will be to properly identify your approach to measurement and what benchmarks will be used to determine if your evaluation and response system is working. Measuring aggregated conversations focusing on negative sentiment before, during and after the crisis helps to determine the crisis plan effectiveness. We have the ability to find the negative sentiment, and understand who and what’s being said in the context of a discussion. There is no more 24-hour news cycle, but rather a minute-to-minute news cycle through social media and your citizen journalists.
Being a Pre-Crisis Doctor is a proactive approach to social media crisis, one that prepares the company for various types of negative conversations. The Pre-Crisis Doctor pinpoints the people, channels, messages and appropriate technology to use before the crisis occurs.
Finally, it’s here … my book, Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional, is available in all digital formats and paperback copies too. The book crystallizes eight new practices for public relations professionals to shift their mindset from tactical to strategic, learn new skills and knowledge, create greater opportunities to collaborate as influencers and to use new practices for professional development, as well as to raise the profile of public relations in the eyes of our executives and the public.
My video discusses a few of the many experts who contributed to my book including: Ariel Hyatt, Priya Ramesh, Jason Kintzler, Sarah Evans, Valerie Simon, Shonali Burke and Brian Solis. You can watch the video to get a sneak peak at the content shared in their interviews. I look forward to your thoughts and opinions, and the new practices you’ve put in place with respect to social media and public relations!
It’s official … Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional is here! My book is available (a littler earlier than I expected) in a print (paperback version) and all digital formats. However, what you won’t find in the book is some of the content I’m sharing in this blog series. These are the charts and even parts of chapters that were cut at the last minute, during the final production process. To continue with my series, today’s post discusses the chart, which would have appeared in the chapter on PR Practice #4 (The COMMS Organizer). The COMMS organizer has an extremely important role, and, as I stated in my book, it takes a “… proactive PR person or team of communications professionals to identify and uproot a long and tired process, and literally flip it upside down.”
You can see from the wheel visual that there are several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn as the COMMS Organizer in your own company. It’s up to you to embrace a new process first, and then educate your peers on a more collaborative approach to creating communication and then sharing it as a unified team. Most of all, the COMMS organizer knows there are changes in communication that must be addressed internally for better sharing and engagement with the public.
As a COMMS Organizer, now, it’s your responsibility to make sure your stakeholders are pulling information from the organization. To accomplish this goal, internally you must create tools and channels to share, and collaborate and integrate with the efforts of your peers. Externally, you’re creating new types of stories and curating content through different channels. Here’s how the responsibilities break down in your new practice:
Set up a Customer Intelligence System
Your social media program begins with Listening or keyword tracking to gain customer and market intelligence. PR and marketing are responsible for monitoring the brand and market landscape and reporting back to the C-Suite. Setting up a customer intelligence system requires information to reach various departments in the organization (beyond communications) that use social media for their own programs. It’s important to turn the listening intelligence on for all areas active in social media and then determine how your Listen/ Evaluate/Response strategy will lead to closing the gap between what you share and what the public needs.
Build a Two Prong Content Approach
You can “Listen” or track keywords to uncover conversation, which leads to the creation of compelling content or the use of existing content (tweaked for social media channels). With either prong in the approach, information must be shared with meaning and reflect proper timing. In PR, we time our news and develop story angles often tying into local, regional or national news. Social media requires us to still listen to the news media, as well as quite a bit of daily community listening. Community conversations will also offer great ideas on what, how and when to share your content.
Focus on Department Sharing
When your team is aligned and on the same page with respect to a communications effort, the result is better external sharing with public. A departmental content calendar let’s the your team or department know what’s going to be shared, where it’s supposed to be shared and the timing of the distribution. These calendars are simple to construct. You can frame when and what should be shared on a spreadsheet (use an editable document on your shared internal platform) to include the timeframe for your initiative, and then the breakdown your social media profiles. Teams often use separate line items to identify what will be shared each day of the week through their social media channels.
Focus on Universal Sharing
Universal sharing means moving away from communication in silos and setting goals based on a new process. When different groups build social media channels, focus communication around their own initiatives, and don’t share or support overall brand communication, then social media is not working for the company as a collective whole. In order to make social media work for the entire company, there has to be a coordinated effort from the development of the content to how the information is shared. Universal calendars are shared across departments to support larger social media communications efforts (an example would be a product launch) with respect to key company events, themes, accepted imagery, link sharing and content, which is highly supportive in broader company efforts.
Develop a Social Media Playbook
The social media playbook is that game plan that keeps all of the team players on the same page and reaching the established goal(s). When different departments are involved in a broad communications initiative the playbook serves a very important purpose. It identifies the goals, messages, audiences, communications (a blend of social media or traditional), acceptable content, shared links and expert resources. The playbook is a strategy that allows groups to work together in harmony and to be able to achieve goals together, as an organization, as well as within their own respective areas.
Build a Gatekeeper System
The Universal Gatekeeper System will be the responsibility of the COMMS organizer in conjunction with other department including HR, legal and IT. Working interdepartmentally to create a communications practice of gathering social media profile account information, or making profile information readily available, is a part of a social media management system. Having the information centrally located is a best practice for the larger organization with a tremendous amount of social media activity and many different profiles per department or for various brand products. Your Universal Gatekeeper System will collect social profile URLs, user names, passwords, and email addresses for the set up of social media accounts. This responsibility becomes especially important as more champions in the company learn to build community and engage with constituents.
Educate with Training & Toolkits
People adapt to social media communications on many different levels. From the inactive or non-participants to the creators of content, training and education is necessary to offer resources and information for people to learn and grow with the organization’s social media program. It’s also important to keep your employees up-to-date with the latest types of technology and resources available, especially as the social landscape changes and expands. Social media education and the development of toolkits (documents created with helpful tools, links to information and learning resources) should be provided at the start of your program and made available company-wide. A good communications program about training and toolkits will have employees learning and embracing new practices much more quickly than asking them research on their own.
The COMMS Organizer develops a more structured and productive approach to internal communications and collaboration in departments and between departments to create better brand communication with the public.
Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional, will be available on May 4th! As a part of the book’s launch, I thought it would a good idea to share some of the material that didn’t make it to print. So, I’m continuing with my chart series, which are all of the charts cut out of the production process (due to space constraints), when we were in the final home stretch. Today’s post discusses the chart from PR Practice #3, which is the PR Technology (Tech) Tester. The PR Tech Tester’s new role is to experiment with different types of technology for better internal and external communications, which results in building stronger relationships.
You can see from the wheel visual that there are several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn as a PR Tech Tester. Learning, embracing and educating your peers on these responsibilities will make you a more valuable asset in your organization. I’ll be doing a blog post in the next couple of weeks focusing on the results of a pilot study which reveals what employers look for in young professionals entering into the workforce, with respect to knowledge, skills, values and sensitivity. According to the study, information technology is among the most important skills and, today, is considered a core competence.
The PR Tech Tester is a professional who quickly learns that a critical part of the communications strategic process is how you use technology in your planning for better monitoring and measurement, channel distribution, optimized content and stronger relationships via your brand communications. Remember, it all starts with the hybrid professional, whose knowledge often expands to other areas of marketing. Here are a few of your PR Tech Tester responsibilities:
Select a Database Contacts and News Monitoring Services
Technology offers you unlimited access an online searchable, contact database where you’re able to keep up with media and blog contacts, and their pitching preferences. These services also offer you instantaneous access to your company’s media coverage, as well as intelligence on competitor mentions and trending industry topics in real-time. Researching and testing the technology allows you to find the right solution and will help you to follow, engage and build better relationships with specific journalists and bloggers who would find your content to be relevant and newsworthy.
Create a Social Media Monitoring / Measurement Program
As a PR Tech Tester, you will immediately notice many of the social media monitoring platforms today allow you to track daily conversations across platforms, your share of voice (SOV) against competitors and your company’s brand sentiment. These platforms also offer information on key influencers, word cloud formations revealing relevant topics, and top domains where the most relevant conversations take place. Selecting the right social media monitoring tools will help you to strategically put a system in place, offering a tremendous amount of intelligence; from trending topics to the critical issues of the people you want to reach.
Determine Website Analytics
PR professionals are getting more and more familiar with the value of website tracking and analytics. Where social media monitoring ends, website analytics begin. Typically, PR professionals have relied on the marketing and/or web team for website analytics. But, with your social media programs and stories driving people to your company’s website and newsrooms, you can no longer rely on someone else providing you with the analytics you need. The ability to track analytics in real time allows the PR Tech Tester to understand a great deal about the behavior of an audience, from how many of your active visitors have actually been to your site before and how long they stay to how many people go to certain pages of your site, revealing the most popular areas.
Test For Social Media Influence
When you discuss online influenceor social media influence, from a technology standpoint, it’s an algorithm that helps you to capture the most powerful people in your network. However, there are different algorithms based on the tools you choose. For example, one influence tool might calculate variables including reach, amplification probability and overall network influence. Another tool might measure different criteria, such as impact, engagement, clout, signal and the velocity, at which you share. It‘s important to familiarize yourself with these tools in your research process as they (1) help to identify people who may have greater impact on their own networks, and those who may be more likely to share your company’s content, as potential brand champions.
Identify the Right Social Channels for Audience Collaboration
The social media landscape is constantly changing and PR professionals must keep up to date on the new and different collaborative platforms, where their brands have an opportunity to engage with stakeholders. As a PR Tech Tester it’s your job to know the platforms where your audiences congregate and the technology they prefer. One of the best ways to keep updated on the latest platforms is to subscribe to blogs/bloggers that report on technology, social media and latest and most interesting collaborative platforms for businesses. Stepping outside of your regular circle / network of peers, and interacting and/or collaborating with professionals who have a stronger focus on business and technology will give you insight into many of the new evolving platforms.
In the past, most PR professionals were not focused on platforms that managed content and sent out numerous emails at a time. PR pros were used to crafting single, customized emails to media contacts. However, today, in order to accurately reach and track responses from numerous contacts, you need an email platform that enables you to customize and then monitor the open and response rates. PR pros will benefit from sending out their news releases or pitch letters to a select group of contacts through a software management system to learn the number of emails sent out, the open rate and the bounce rate, the number of people who click as well as who forward your correspondence.
Review News Release Technology
Because the media landscape has changed, PR pros are faced with decisions regarding how to share business stories. As a PR Tech Tester, you will realize how there are a few options. One option is the use of a wire service that has ramped up distribution capabilities to include 2.0 functionality and reach. They offer the ability to distribute your news release beyond traditional print, broadcast and online media outlets to reach bloggers and consumers. Then, on the other end of the release spectrum is the Social Media Release (SMR), which is a community tool for sharing news and customized stories. The SMR is highly interactive and is housed on a blog platform. PR Tech Testers need to research and decide the best approach to sharing their stories with the public.
Being a PR Tech Tester and finding the right technology for your toolkit is trial and error. Today, technology is no longer someone else’s job. You have to roll up you sleeves to experiment and make it an integral part of your programs for better engagement and communications impact.
We’re gearing up for another dynamic #PRStudchat Twitter chat session on April 18th at 8:30 p.m. ET. Our topic of discussion is the online newsroom, which is used as a centralized headquarters for an organization’s communications content. From news stories, photos and videos to contacts, media kits and investor relations, newsrooms offer information for the public that’s available 24×7 (reaching broader audiences beyond journalists).
We have two special guests joining us the night of the 18th. Steve Momorella (@momorella), owner and founder of TEKGROUP and Sally Falkow (@sallyfalkow), President of PRESSfeed. Our experts will share their insights on how to position your online newsroom as a go-to resource, ensure you have the essential elements journalists expect and the social media features necessary for easy sharing and inform our community about the types of content to help increase exposure and brand awareness.
Here’s a little more on our experts:
Steve Momorella
Steve Momorella, owner and founder, TEKGROUP International, has more than 17 years of direct Internet experience ranging from programming to high-level design and consulting for numerous large corporations including IBM, AOL and Ford Motor Company. Currently, Steve is responsible for the sales and marketing of TEKGROUP’s Online Newsroom Solution, used by well-known brands including Toyota, Starbucks, Prudential, Walgreens, Sprint, and many of the Fortune 500 companies. Steve is co-authoring his first book, The Incredible Online Newsroom, to be published in the spring of 2012.
Sally Falkow:
Sally Falkow is the president of PRESSfeed. Sally has been involved in the use of technology for corporate communications since 1995. She has been evangelizing the use of blogs, optimized press releases and online news rooms with news feeds (RSS) since 2003. In her work with optimized press releases and blogs, Sally found that there was a need for an easy to use, affordable online newsroom that would allow marketing and PR people to add news and other branded content to their websites.
If you want to share some of your online newsroom tips and/or if you have questions for our experts, please feel free to comment on this post, or to start a discussion in our LinkedIn Discussion Group. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the online newsroom and how you’re using the newsroom as a resource to increase brand exposure. Please join us for a fast-paced discussion filled with helpful tips, techniques and best practices to get your online newsroom up to date and providing value for your organization. Hope to “see” you on the 18th.
A Little More About PRStudChat:
It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals… A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more
Many of you may know David Armano, EVP, Global Innovation & Integration for Edelman Digital. I “officially” met David when we were asked to participate on a panel of judges for PR Newswire’s Earnies Awards in November 2011. For years, I’ve been a fan of David’s blog, Logic + Emotion, and I’ve followed him on Twitter. I also appreciate and learn from the social business visuals he shares on Pinterest.
David has a highly influential voice on the subject of social media for business, so I was absolutely thrilled when he agreed to write the Foreword for my book, Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional. With my book launching on May 4, 2012, I wanted to share David’s Foreword to give you a sneak peak at the book’s content. I hope you enjoy the preview!
Of all the industries to be affected by the massive changes brought about by social media, Public Relations has been, since the beginning on the front line. The reason is simple—much of social media is done in public, by the public and the dynamics that have shaped public relations in the past (media relations, interactions with opinion leaders and influencers and of course crisis/reputation management) are not only present in social media, but often times accentuated and amplified by it.
Recent history is filled with scores of examples of how “social” has dramatically affected brands and even business functions beyond reputation—from “Dell Hell” to “Motrin Moms” to Kenneth Cole promoting his brand at the expense of those sacrificing during the Arab Spring. Social media has proven to upend not only modern day communications processes, possesses the potential to impact a company’s bottom line or at minimum—its reputation. It may not be social media that broke the initial story of Apple’s labor practices but it is social media that keeps a story relevant and in the “newsfeeds” of our lives whether it be via Facebook, Twitter or even niche networks such as Pinterest.
The way we’ve looked at Public Relations in the past must be re-thought or at minimum re-examined. In Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer study for example—the stakeholder, which enjoyed the most significant gain in perceived trust compared to the pervious year is a “regular employee”. Compare this to the stakeholder group which ranked last (CEO’s) and note that regular employees ranked just below “a person like yourself” but above NGO representatives. The data suggests a trend, which indicates that institutions and those who represent them remain more, challenged when it comes to trust vs. individuals. If the Public Relations industry were to find itself heading head first into the eye of the perfect storm of it’s time—it might be just be now.
Never before have professional communicators been tasked with not only making statements but understanding “sentiment” not only viewed through the eyes of traditional media but also through the eyes of the actual public who is empowered to communicate directly via blog, tweet, post, etc. In today’s communications landscape—the journalist now shares the stage with scrappy niche publishers who can break news without their help. The media industry has had not choice but to adapt to this and many journalists such as David Pogue from the New York Times now report and influence opinion showing a mastery of not only traditional media techniques but also of social media tactics.
All of this spells a singular reality for the modern day communicator. Adapt or die trying. Today, being a “PR pro” means understanding and being effective in community management. Practitioners must understand more than ever how to play well with their counterparts in customer service and advertising (especially digital) and the modern day communicator must understand business strategy—to not only respond and adapt, but to also help shape favorable outcomes for the individuals, organizations and Public they represent. All with a level of transparency and ethical standards that remains higher than ever as social media has proven to punish those who attempt to manipulate it for personal gain. Deirdre Breakenridge has put together a comprehensive set of guidelines, resources, opinions and clear thoughts which are designed for the communicators of today and tomorrow who have no choice but to live and work in a real time data driven world. Her constructs set up a cohesive foundation which professionals both in-house and on the services side will be able to benefit from. Her eight practices lay out in detail what considerations need to be taken into account when PR meets social, so that the right infrastructure can be put in place before it’s even needed. Consider these thoughts a blueprint for both communication and engagement in an era of social business.
David Armano, EVP of Global Innovation & Integration for Edelman Digital and author of the Logic + Emotion blog
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