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The Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management announces the launch of an international survey of PR professionals

The Global Alliance announces the launch of an international survey of PR professionals. The survey’s goal is to hear from PR professional associations and individual practitioners around the world on the key issues that will affect practitioners, associations and the profession in the next five years. The results will inform the development of the Global Alliance’s new strategic plan for 2009-2014. The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete, and the results will be presented at the Global Alliance’s annual general meeting on June 6, 2009, in Vancouver, Canada.

To complete the survey click here>>

The Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management is the umbrella organization linking PR professional associations around the world. By partnering with associations in more than 70 countries, the Alliance works to increase professionalism in public relations and enhance the global influence of the profession. The Alliance’s activities focus on setting standards, sharing resources, advocacy for the profession and outreach to help national associations grow.

By GenevaCom| March 24th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR

Brian Solis, author of PR 2.0 and Deirdre Breakenridge have published a book titled: “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR.”

PR, as we know it, is a dying practice having evolved away from the public and instead concentrating its energy on broadcasting disconnected messages to “media and analysts.”

What we’ve learned and what we know are quickly fading into irrelevance and obscurity. Reporters and analysts are now sharing the stage with a new generation of influencers. In addition to a still relevant process of media relations, we now need to expand our scope of participation and outreach by also identifying, understanding, and engaging the everyday people who have plugged-in to a powerful and democratized online platform for creating and distributing information, insight, and opinions – effectively gaining authority in the process.

The very people we had always wished to reach through traditional channels are now the very people we need to convince and inspire directly in order to remain part of industry-defining and market making conversations. This is a new era of influence and in order to participate, we have to rewire our DNA to stop marketing “at” audiences in order to genuinely and intelligently humanize our story to connect with real people and the online communities they inhabit.

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is a critical and mandatory process to shine in today’s social economy. It will help businesses forge meaningful relationships with those who will bridge specific benefits to distinct groups of consumers in order to cultivate a loyal, vocal, and hyper-connected community of customers and influencers.

By GenevaCom| March 23rd, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

Engagement: YouGov survey results

Sharing power, not ‘communicating at’ people, is the most effective way of engaging employees to improve business performance. This is one of the major findings of the largest ever survey of employee engagement in the UK. YouGov and the Engage Group surveyed 23,585 people across Great Britain in October 2008, including 2,500 board-level executives – 2,000 of them from FTSE 500 companies.

The study’s findings establish a direct relationship between an organisation’s financial performance and the extent to which employees are engaged to perform. It also unearths a set of ‘new world’ elements of successful engagement, which define a radical new approach to getting the best out of employees.

“We now have definitive data that say people become more engaged when they are more closely involved with decision-making – both every day and at the point of change,” says John Smythe, deputy chairman of Engage Group. “Performance is better when they are engaged and change is better managed.”

Read FT article on the survey findings >

Download the full report here >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| March 20th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

A definitive framework for internal communication

In 2008, Melcrum developed a framework for members of the Strategic Communication Research Forum, Melcrum’s global membership group for senior internal communication professionals. One year on, they have published an article looking back at the thinking behind the Framework’s creation and how it can enable Internal Communications to become a more value-adding function. Two Forum members who have been using the framework also offer their insights into how they have been using the tool and to what effect.

Read the full article >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| March 14th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

Top Lists

For those that like lists, here are a few that have recently been published:

The Guardian’s Top 100 websites
American Mensa’s top 50 websites
BBC audiences favourite 30 words
Fortune’s 50 most admired companies
Jakob Neilsen’s Top 10 Intranets
Top 25 books for Internal Communicators
Top 20 Social web sites

By GenevaCom| March 12th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

Communicating your way through a recession

Despite being written one year ago, the HBS article, ‘Marketing Your Way Through a Recession’, is still relevant today. In the piece, professor John Quelch explains that the is key is to marketing during a recession is understanding how the needs of your customers and partners has changed, and adapting your strategies to the new reality.

Much of what Quelch imparts in his article is as relevant for those in communication, as it is for those in marketing:

Research the customer. Preferences have changed, and so communicating successfully with your audience will rely on understanding their new needs. This will also help you target clients more effectively and not waste any of your time, energy or spend.

Focus on Family Values. During hard times, people spend more time at home and focus their attention on those closest to them, therefore images of homely scenes will have a big impact as people seek to be comforted.

Maintain communication spend. Now is the time to negotiate great rates and lock these in for the long-term. By maintaining strong communications with your customers now, you will have a greater chance of gaining market share at low cost, as well as gaining a lasting an edge over the competition.

Know your plans well. Understanding your current strategy well will help you to eliminate those areas that are weak and adapt your strategy to the current climate without affecting outcomes.

Support your partners. Everyone is struggling, but by working together with your partners, you may be able to find new and better ways of achieving your goals, whilst simultaneously building strong relationships that will help you survive the downturn.

Emphasize core values. While lay-offs may be inevitable, now is the time to cement the loyalty of those who remain by assuring employees that the company has survived difficult times before by maintaining quality rather than cutting corners and focusing on existing and key customers. CEO visibility will be key.

Read the original article >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| March 4th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

Bring Authenticity/Audience Perception to Social Media

Another look at our current ‘Hot Topic’ this time in an interesting piece by Mary Cullen. She believes that the open nature of Social Media will encourage people to improve the quality of their communications and be more authentic in the way they interact with their audience, which will, in turn, have a positive impact on the quality of social media in general. Read the full article >

Melitta

By GenevaCom| February 28th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

The corporate silo lives!

A recent working paper from Harvard Business School has revealed that despite the efforts of many organisations to break down internal boundaries, the corporate silo is still alive and well.

For the report, titled: Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organisation, the authors spent three months analysing communications between staff within a large unnamed company with more than 100,000 employees.

The team was taken aback by the lack of communication across the organisation. They found that most people tended to communicate with others in their own group or with peers. With women being one of the few exceptions.

Although the research doesn’t try to answer why corporate silos are so difficult to tear down, the authors hope that the data will help managers understand, pinpoint, and remove bottlenecks within their own organisations.

Key concepts from the report include:

Inside the studied company, practically speaking, little interaction occurred across three major corporate boundaries: business units, organisational functions, and office locations.
Communication patterns were extremely hierarchical: Executives, middle managers, and rank-and-file employees communicated extensively within their own levels, but there were far fewer cross-pay-grade interactions in the firm.
Junior executives, women, and members of the salesforce were the key actors in bridging the silos.
Relative to men, women participate in a greater volume of electronic and face-to-face interactions and do so with a larger and more diverse set of communication partners.
Server logs can provide valuable information to managers on communication flows within their own organisations.

Melitta

By GenevaCom| February 24th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

Social networking with baby boomers

An interesting article in The New York Times of 20 February on:

Baby Boomers, Luddites? Not So Fast.

It’s probably safe to say that Whopper Sacrifice, Burger King’s impish Facebook campaign that offered users free burgers in exchange for dropping 10 friends, wasn’t aimed at retirees. But maybe it should have been.

A recent report from Forrester Research indicates that while it might be tempting to categorize all aging Americans as techno-dinosaurs and Luddites, more than 60 percent of baby boomers are avid consumers of social media like blogs, forums, podcasts and online videos. That’s up from roughly 40 percent a year ago.

Read complete article >>

By GenevaCom| February 21st, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

Tips for making Twitter a key part of your PR communications strategy

Cision, a global provider of media monitoring, research, distribution, and evaluation services for the public relations profession, has released an informative new tip sheet, available for free download, titled: Using Twitter to Become Part of the Conversation – How Twitter can become a Key Element of your Communications Effort.

Their top three tips:
1. Get in the game
2. Choose your friends
3. Listen closely

Melitta

By GenevaCom| February 18th, 2009|Other resources|0 Comments

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