Pollock Communications

Archives for April 2013

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What Happens to Public Relations Efforts During Tragedy?

It’s PR, not the ER. This is a phrase many of us in PR look to when deadlines seem unattainable and the workload is intense enough that our significant others, dogs and cats are asleep when we leave in the morning and we get home at night. It’s the reminder that while we are busy and passionate about our clients’ products and success, there is something greater out there. We work in public relations, not the emergency room.

One of the reasons PR people can be good at our jobs is that we treat every product, statistic, spokesperson as if it is the most important, most interesting thing. So, what does public relations look like during a crisis? During a time when even we have to admit that our priorities are not what’s important to the world? Last Monday during the Boston Marathon, and all of last week, was one of those times.

What should we do? Even if we have the world’s best pitch and we’re sending it to the sports editor, we stop. Save the email draft and wait. Even if the person’s beat is not hard news or crime, there’s the possibility that she might have been pulled onto breaking news for the short term to cover everything that’s happening. Not to mention, she is still a human being, and just as you are checking CNN every five minutes, she is too—glued to the TV, refreshing Facebook or Twitter for updates from friends and family that live in affected areas.

Also, if you are the manager of social media channels, there are two mistakes that we see people offended by over and over:

Tying sales goals or consumer engagement techniques to the tragedy

While we won’t mention brand names here, a few may spring to mind for you. We’ve seen stores tie sales promotions to Hurricane Sandy and during the riots in Egypt, another company claimed the riots were excitement over its spring clothing line.

Ignoring the tragedy altogether

Despite what we normally think about staying engaged, it is more than appropriate for brands to take a hiatus from social media during crises. No one will miss your Wednesday tweets about mid-week family dinners or Friday tweets about weekend plans. In fact, last week, we saw quite a few people take brands and public figures to task for being flippant or unaware.

It’s called Public Relations—our job is to build relationships—between ourselves and the media, and between the public and our clients. What faster way to destroy goodwill we’ve created than to capitalize on tragedy or misery? So stop typing and go watch the news with the rest of us.

Then, when the time is right, the storm has blown over or the perpetrator has been caught, resume your PR efforts, but do so with care, respect and the knowledge that the people you’re reaching out to, and their audiences, may have been personally affected.

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Social Media in Times of Tragedy

In response to the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday many of us found ourselves reaching out through social media to connect, learn, vent or seek comfort related to the tragedy that broke up an exciting event on a beautiful Spring afternoon. People tweeting and posting on Facebook and their friends, family and other citizens who were competing from all around the world for the sake of health and good sportsmanship were rattled as blasts rang through the streets by the finish line. From those who were in the crowds cheering the participants on to the farthest reaching points of the planet, social media flooded with people’s reactions to the incident.
There were questions, but no answers.

At this point we understand that the news media has actions in place to handle these sorts of national incidents, but what about social media sites and outlets? How should they be handled in cases such as these? How should social media managers control the content that is so rapidly and virally distributed?

PR Daily posted an article questioning just that idea and came up with multiple guidelines to help companies, businesses and other outlets streamline the chaos that overwhelmed all of us. Here are their 7 suggestions:

  1. Have a company plan in place to handle the news and how you will disseminate your response, unless you choose to go silent
  2. Put a monitoring system in place to keep track of the content that comes through your company
  3. Inform employees and your community of what is taking place objectively
  4. Halt marketing/promotions so that you don’t appear unaffected
  5. Respond to criticism in case you were behind with the news and offend any readers
  6. Be a resource in case your community has questions and uses you for information
  7. Show compassion because we are all human

At Pollock we were all dismayed by the news and our hearts were heavy with the rest of the world. We can always come up with precautionary steps to prevent social media from getting out of control, but we can’t control the precautionary steps to prevent these major crises that affect us all.

Source: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/14288.aspx

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Communications Trend: Consumers as Marketers

A trend that we have seen grow over the past couple of years is that consumers are becoming marketers for our brands—and important marketers at that. With the continued rise in social media channels, mobile apps and the like, almost everyone has the opportunity to be engaged and easily express their individual ideas and opinions to the world. We recently read two different articles that highlight just how influential consumer opinions have become to other consumers.
Bulldog Reporter spotlighted a survey by MarketingProfs which revealed that online review sites, such as Yelp.com have a huge impact on consumer purchases and behavior. In fact, 1/3 of consumers said, “online ratings and reviews were the most influential factor in informing their online purchasing decisions.”
The second article from Marketing Week says something similar, “everyone has the ability to be engaged, enabled and empowered to create and collaborate. Almost everyone has access to a WiFi or mobile phone signal, to platforms that will unleash their inner creativity and talent. Almost everyone has access to the social infrastructure that now underpins and drives our culture.”
This topic interests us for obvious reasons. We work in marketing and public relations but are also consumers in everyday life. After reading about some of the stats, we were reminded of how word-of-mouth influences our own day-to-day decisions. When we go to choose a recipe, restaurant, hotel or whatever it may be, we almost always go straight to the internet to read user ratings and reviews to make our final decision. And most of the time—we end up agreeing with the reviews.
Whether it’s via Yelp, Facebook, Twitter or otherwise, consumers have the power to share their thoughts and opinions with friends and those in their social network. We all in turn use those ideas to make our own decisions. As marketers it is important for us to recognize this, think of creative ways to start the conversation and then encourage our audience to use the tools available to help spread the word about the brands they love—our brands.
Sources:
• https://bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/article/word-of-mouth-rules-the-roost-web-reviews-influence-consumer-purchases-more-than-an
• http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/opinion/welcome-to-a-world-where-any-consumer-is-a-marketer/4006139.article

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