Achieving great results by being proactive

If this was one of those TV commercials about funeral & insurance policies, it would go something like this, “Don’t you just hate it when clients tell you what to do? Well, with being PROACTIVE you are covered”.

Put simply, being proactive means thinking and acting ahead - basically, this means using foresight and creating the time, space and opportunity. It's a great method for avoiding more work down the road but also can be extremely important for preventing disasters, planning well for the future and for instituting systems at work, in study, and at home that make life easier for not just you, but others as well. Many of us look to proactive people as the instigators of action and creative ideas in society.

So why is being proactive important? Well let me make it clear, in public relations and in any field for that matter, a proactive approach gives you more control over your planning and enables you to set the agenda. You get to decide how best to present the image of the company or client.

Being proactive is also a great way of not letting the client become the one in control of the PR. You have to be in control and you have to set the pace and define the strategy and actions. If you aren’t proactive then clients often feel the need to take these functions back, rendering the PR practitioner powerless.

Being proactive also means that you work to create the results that you and your business will experience, rather than waiting to react to what other people are doing.

Here are some suggestions that can help you become a more proactive person.

- Know which tasks are priorities and which can wait. If you aren’t already skilled in setting priorities then study and use the action priority matrix

- Evaluate your procedures and processes as you use them. If the word SYSTEM were an acronym it would stand for: Saves You Stress Time Energy Money. So build systems that achieve this but also keep improving them.

- Try to anticipate things you will need to know. If you don’t try to anticipate, it won’t happen. Make it a practice to think ahead.

- Develop a mindset that looks to solve problems instead of dwelling on them.

- Define the problem (what is it exactly?), and then decide what needs to happen to overcome the problem and how you’re going to do that; and get on with it

- Examine critically how you might perform those tasks more efficiently. Create a plan, procedure, checklist or routine to accomplish the task and then look for steps in the process to eliminate, consolidate, or shorten.

As a PR professional you should aim to be two things: proactive and useful. Being proactive will help you in your client, media, and co-worker relationships-even if it is a simple thing like updating people on the things you’re responsible for before you are asked. Being useful applies to those relationships as well. The more useful you are, the more trusted you become.

Having said all this, we need to also understand that being proactive is a learned skill, it is being courageous in taking risks. Being proactive is learning from one's own mistakes and learning from the mistakes of others. Being proactive is about creating desired results and moving yourself forward.

Let us all start being proactive!

Influencer relations: Influencing influencers

The prominence of social media today has highlighted the importance of getting the right people talking about your brand in the right light. Many companies are trying to figure out how to harness the power of influencers within the social media space.

What exactly is influencer relations? I define influencer relations as the process of identifying and engaging with people who have the ability to influence others. Influencers could be loyal customers, bloggers who reach an audience relevant to your product, service or industry, referral sources or even editors of newspapers that hit your target audience. Regardless of where the come from, influencers all share a common trait, other people listen to what they have to say. In the online world, influencers are those people whose opinions on specific topics are respected and whose advice is taken. They are the go-to people for millions of people seeking advice.

Why do people listen to these people? Influencers have authority, expertise, credibility, reach or any combination of the above. Some people are seen as influential because their reach covers thousands of people. Others have a smaller reach but are outright thought leaders on more niche topics or industries. Some people work at interesting companies and, as such, what they say carries more weight than the average person. There are any number of combinations of traits that make people influential but what doesn’t change is that most people will sooner rely on other people for information than conducting their own research. Why? Because it’s easier to listen to someone who has expertise than to develop the expertise myself.

Where are these influencers? Influencers can be found in every facet of our lives, from radio, television, print and social media to vocal people at taxi ranks, dinner parties and in bank queues. There are influencers at work in every human network, online or offline.

How do they influence? People influence people: The more an individual is known, trusted and liked, the more the individual becomes influential. The massive reach the internet provides has helped people quickly build influence networks. It has also enabled ‘offline’ influencers to move their influence online.

Take for instance Josh Spear (@joshspear), a 26-year-old college dropout who is now regarded as one of the most influential marketing strategists in the world. He started blogging daily about things he liked, reviewing products, ideas, people or places that inspired him. People started following and engaging with his blog and created influence, and today a wide range of exceptional people from around the world respect and value his opinion. His different ways of thinking and different ways of expressing himself makes him powerful. He can take an idea, brand or concept that is not in the mainstream consciousness and bring it to mainstream consciousness. Now that’s the power of influence, isn’t it? (Josh will also be speaking at the upcoming Tech4Africa conference)

How do you find / get to know influencers? Influencers can be found in a variety of ways, from a Google search, through tools and news aggregators or by simply following them on the platforms or social networks where they engage on. (You have to find them before you follow them). True influencers will be easier to find as they rise to the surface of most online and offline networks.

How do you engage influencers? This can be done via social media platforms & communications, activation, conferences, product reviews, networking events.

You need to know who you talking to, have a solid understanding of their interests, what they like talking about, whether they are happy to be engaged with and, if yes, how they prefer to be engaged.

It's more than just a message: It’s about listening and engaging.

What are the benefits? Creating conversations, brand awareness, sales or creating ambassadors. The impact and reach of these influencers can be considerable for a brand's online reputation and, ultimately, sales.

One of the greatest things about social media and the internet is it allows us to connect with more influential people than ever before in a single environment.

Strategic Communication: What it really means!

After attending the Strategic Communication workshop at the University of Johannesburg last month, it got me thinking as to what strategic communications really means.

While many believe that it’s about creating and distributing communications that, while different in style and purpose, have an inner coherence; others think that it’s a new way for organisations to respond to a changed business landscape that results from today's networked communication environment.

Extending on the above views, Shayna Englin, who teaches Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Georgetown, believes that being strategic means communicating the best message, through the right channels, measured against well-considered organisational and communications-specific goals. It’s the difference between doing communications stuff, and doing the right communications stuff.

I’ve come to believe that strategic communications involves the strategic planning of communication in order to ensure effective internal communication, thereby enabling the organisation to achieve short-term goals such as productivity and effectiveness and long term organisational goals such as adaptation and survival. It is a way of thinking, a guide to action and the determinant for the communication behaviour of every member of the organisation. Its goal is to create a distinctive set of communication capabilities that have special value to a particular part of the market place.

Karen Hughes, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs shared her five C’s for best practices in strategic communications:

1. Clarity – Say what you mean. To be effective, your message must be clear. Make sure you have the sound bite that is tomorrow’s headline.

2. Conviction: Mean what you say. There is a fine line between being emphatic and being overstated. Learn the difference.

3. Compassion: Make your message relevant to people’s lives. Tell the story in the context of the audience you are communicating to. Focus on kitchen table issues.

4. Credibility: People have to believe you/trust you. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter what you say or do.

5. Consistency: Say it over and over again. About the time you are sick of saying something is about the time it begins to sink in. You have to find new and interesting ways to say the same thing. Messages based on core values are good because you speak about what you believe in. Speak with one voice throughout the organisation. You also have to DO what you SAY for consistency.

This ability to think strategically is crucial to remaining competitive in an increasingly turbulent and global environment. In the nutshell, strategic communications means infusing communications efforts with an agenda and a master plan. Typically, that master plan involves promoting the brand of an organisation, urging people to do specific actions, or advocating particular legislation.

The Nature of Media Deadlines

Your reputation is generally based on two things: the quality of your work, and how well you meet deadlines. Sure, you can do great work, but if you don’t turn your projects in on time, you won’t get many repeat customers/clients.

Deadlines. We all face them, and they can make for a very stressful and anxiety-ridden time. Even the most organised and systematic among us will occasionally face deadlines that make us stay up late and get just a little bit worried that this may be the one we miss. That’s the nature of media deadlines.

Why meet deadlines? Well firstly, it’s the line beyond which you’re dead if you haven’t done your work. But that’s the negative side. On the positive side, meeting deadlines ensures smooth workflow, facilitates timely communication and makes you a team player because people may rely on your involvement.

What does it mean to meet deadlines? Meeting deadlines is as important as the task, it means compromising and sacrificing your time to get things done within the desired period set out for the task. It also means having proper processes on how you plan to execute a particular task within a project or the project itself.

We need to respect and value people's time. Understanding and respecting not just your job but also those of the people who are involved in the process is as important.

Public Relations deadlines are linked with media deadlines (i.e. we don't make them up for fun). Journalists work according to schedules and they are given certain tasks with clear turnaround times (i.e. to source & write stories or even interview for stories for their publications).

Journalists may turn to PR for content and create a deadline for editorial submission that we need to adhere to. If you miss that deadline you actually inconvenience the journo as well as the publication because they now have to make other arrangements to fill the space before their print or go-live deadline. Some of these deadlines may come up at the last minute and you need to be prepared to respond at short notice.

How do you make sure you meet deadlines and prevent opportunities from falling through the cracks? Here are some essential tips on how to manage deadlines:

1. Care about deadlines, respect and value people’s time.
2. Keep a list of projects & deadlines.
3. Communicate a clear deadline to yourself and others
4. Break down the project, have a start and complete date for each step.
5. Block off adequate time to complete and review your work.
6. Give yourself extra time to follow up.

People usually underestimate the time it takes to mentally switch gears. Working with media requires you to meet constant deadlines and it is a demanding activity. Some people thrive in this sort of environment, especially when they know some of the tricks to meeting deadlines. Have you got what it takes?

The importance of PR continues to grow

There was a time when public relations as a practice suffered from an ‘unfortunate past’ across the world. This had been due to practitioners being perceived as ‘spin doctors’ and ‘fancy accoutrements’ for issues and events.

Expressions such as: ‘It is only a PR exercise’ were often heard and the perception that the activity of public relations is merely a technical function in organisations was rife. In recent times the strategic role of public relations has taken front stage.

Public Relations has arguably never enjoyed a position of greater prominence than it does today. Companies and organisations across every industry and geography recognise the importance of effective communications. Along with the traditional PR strongholds of analyst and media relations, disciplines such as internal communications and social media are now becoming increasingly important as a core requisite for successful business operations.

In a competitive global environment companies are looking for new and more effective ways to communicate with customers, prospects and partners and this is where PR comes in. Having said that, let us look at some points showing the importance of PR.

- PR makes a valuable contribution to reputation management, working hard to sustain and enhance a good reputation and even harder to repair a damaged one.

- PR can change the context of how people react to all of your communications, your brand and to other brand critics and evangelists

- PR is essential as a management function and a vital component of strategic planning at the highest levels of decision-making.

- PR is all about forming relationships, nourishing them and watching them grow whether it's with clients, the media or investors.

According to an in-depth feature on churnalism.com, in the U.S. and U.K. there are now more PR people than journalists. This shows that companies and organisations are starting to properly harness the value of PR. The relationship between PR and journalist has never been more symbiotic than now.

PR practitioners need journalists because the formal media is currently still the largest outlet to inform the public about their clients. With newsroom cuts and the increasing speed of technology, journalists have twice the workload and less time to research and deliver in-depth reporting. Therefore, journalists turn to PR practitioners for story pitches, press releases, and quick answers to their questions.

PR, both as a communications tool on its own – and as part of the overall communications mix – has helped build many of our clients’ brands.

Introducing Gmail Motion

PR practitioners - learn to say No!

PR practitioners - learn to say No!

Why Social Media?

The digital age has introduced far more effective means of sharing information – literally at the click of a button.

Who would have known a few years ago how popular social media websites would actually become? Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have revolutionised how people share information with often vastly distributed audiences.

Social media has been around for a while, yet not many companies in South Africa have realised its potential. One of the secrets to social media's success is how easy it has become to participate.

SM gives companies the opportunity and platform to both promote their brand and obtain feedback from customers. It also enables them to present their corporate personality on the Internet.

However, avoiding SM means that you are missing out on many useful marketing tools and strategies. SM is not just about advertising your product and services; it is about projecting the human dimension of your business and the personality of your brand and it demands the mindset of a Public Relations professional combined with the skills of a top marketer.

SM will help PR identify which ideas match with specific audiences and can help us earn more attention and interest.

SM can be a fundamental part of your overall communications strategy as it encourages a regular stream of low-level interaction and is real time. This leads to my top four benefits of using social media.

Below are my top four benefits of social media:

The personal and professional enrichment provided through social media is worth it all. Social media can provide you with and help you maintain focus.

In my opinion, social media is the best branding tool ever. The ability to build awareness, create appeal and generate traffic is awesome.

Social media improves your communication skills. (Our company blog is helping me communicate better, even Twitter helps me to be more concise, exercise my vocabulary and improve my writing skills).

Another benefit of using social media is that you get to listen to what people or businesses are saying.

So, if your not using Social Media you should know that it is growing and growing quickly. Don’t be left out, join the gang!!

This blog post was first published on the Cerebra website.