Business Record - Iowa Biz

"Media Relations" means relating to the media

Claire Celsi is the Director of Public Relations at Lessing-Flynn in Des Moines.

About five years ago, I was invited to speak at a Society of Professional Journalists meeting here in Des Moines, held in the old Des Moines Social Club. I was there to talk about how social media was forvever changing the face of journalism. 

The room was divided between two "camps." The first camp was a group of newspaper publishers, owners and editors who thought that they should "own" the digital lives of their reporters and every single thought they thought or word they wrote.

The other camp was the reporters themselves, some of whom were listening intently but not saying anything. But there were a few brave souls who stood right up and admitted (GASP!) that they were starting to use social media in their reporting! And sometimes (double GASP!) they had personal opinions about things that they didn't really try to hide. They also asserted ownership over their own personal thoughts and written content (THE SKY IS FALLING!).

This created a vigorous debate amongst the group. There was a true upheaval taking place in the industry. The "old-school" position was that reporters were neutral arbitors of the news, had no discernable personal leanings, and isolated themselves from the commoners to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Fast-forward five years. In my estimation, most journalists still conduct themselves with the utmost journalistic intergrity and very carefully stay within the lines. However, many of them have found ways to be "one of us" and have joined social networks. While a few disclose their personal political bias, most stay neutral, at least publicly. But, the good journalists I know all use social media to further their craft.

Journalists can still use help from their friends and the general public and maintain journalistic integrity. They have always been trusted with the job of rooting through contradictory information and severly divergent viewpoints. Social media just helps reporters do their jobs more efficiently. Furthermore, I'm fairly certain that reporters get story ideas from conversations they witness on their social networks.

Journalists talk about themselves a little now. I can tell when someone is having a frustrating day. Or when they have an ailing parent. Or just need a hug. The thing I like the most is that I can really get to know them as a person before talking to them about a story. I can read their previous stories on Facebook and Twitter and know what beat they cover and what they are interested in.

Having this information makes me FAR more attuned to them as a person and as a professional. I really like having this new way to learn about reporters as people, not just paragraph stackers. 

So when you're looking around for someone to tell your story to, don't forget...Reporters are people, first and foremost. It's likely that you can find out a lot about them by following them on Twitter. 

-Claire Celsi

PR content can enhance search engine results for your website

Claire Celsi is the Director of Public Relations at Lessing-Flynn

When meeting with clients, the state of their website inevitably comes up. Not surprisingly, the focus is on the design, not the content. Search engines like Google constantly "crawl the web" to find new and interesting content to deliver to users. Having a "static" website, tells the search engines, "Move on, there's nothing to see here." The result is a lower ranking for your site compared to sites that are updated more often.

Companies that create their own content have a big advantage over those who don't. "Content" is a general term and can mean written material such as news releases, articles, photographs or videos. After the content is used for its intended purpose, posting it to your website is a cheap way to flag down the search spiders and say, "Hey! Look over here! New content!" Search engines reward you by ranking your site higher.

Public relations activities naturally generate very positive content. News releases, product launches, awards, employee activities and newsletter articles should all be repurposed on your site. 

When meeting with your website developer, be sure to ask them if your site is working for you to attact new customers. Here are some other simple tips to make sure your site is optimized and attracting the attention it deserves from search engines:

1. Do you have a site map? Websites with site maps are easier to index and provide structure. Here's a free site map generator that will create a site map for you.
2. Create outbound links. It's not just "nice" to create links to give readers more information, it's also crucial for optimizing your site for search. 
3. Repurpose content: Does your site have a newsroom or an "About" page where you can post public relations content? If not, create one.
4. Make your content easy to find. When you add a new page or article, be sure to link to it so it's easily found.
5. Use social channels to link to your site. Don't post on Facebook or Twitter without a link - you're wasting an opportunity to create a click on your site.

If you'd like to explore this topic some more, here are some free resources from Google.

-Claire Celsi

When do sponsorships make sense?

Sponsoring events can be a smart way to use your public relations budget, or they can be off-target. Companies are always getting asked to support events by becoming a sponsor. But it should be a two-way street, benefiting both the sponsor and the organization they are supporting. Before writing that big check, here are a few things to keep in mind. 

1. Make sure the sponsorship matches your mission. Middendorf Insurance sponsors Bike Month because they are interested in wellness. Hubbell Homes sponsors Anawim because it's in keeping with their corporate mission of providing housing for people in our community.
2. Employee Buy-in: Do your employees support the organization you’re sponsoring, or is it the boss’ pet project? I’ve been to a lot of fancy dinners where the tickets have been purchased by an executive, but the seats remain empty because not enough employees have buy-in on the project. Why sponsor something if your employees are not passionate about it? Instead, look for an organization that everyone can support.
3. Does the sponsorship save you money over creating your own event? If it would cost you less to sponsor than to create your own event, then you’d be better off just writing a check than running a whole separate event. Events have all kinds of hidden costs, like insurance, security and publicity that can really break the bank.
4. Loss of productivity: Is the sponsorship plug-and-play, or is it going to require a big staff time investment? Be sure to factor in these labor costs, and the cost of lost employee productivity.
5. ROI: Will your sponsorship provide a return on investment for your company? ROI does not necessarily have to be increased sales. Sometimes the goal is just increased name recognition with your target audience. 

Taking all this into consideration, many companies do use sponsorships as an effective public relations tool. Once in a while, re-evaluate all the sponsorships you've signed on to, and only renew the ones that make total sense for your entire enterprise.

Claire Celsi is the Director of Public Relations at Lessing-Flynn in Des Moines, Iowa.

Incorporate 5 new trends into your PR plan

While it's imperative for any company to have a PR professional on staff or on call, it's equally important to know what trends are driving engagement across your entire enterprise. In layman's terms..."How does your customer consume their information?" Knowing where to place your message and how to do it is an essential piece of business intelligence.

Fear not. Some of the best trends are practical, and achievable for the average company.

1. Content marketing:

There is a lot of buzz about content marketing. First a definition. Content marketing is creating written content about your business or industry that will attract new customers or retain current customers. Creating your own content can be a tall task, but don't be tempted to use content from other sources. Create your own. Why? Several reasons. 

• Thought leadership: Why would you highlight the expertise of others when you could showcase your own?
• Share the spotlight: Give your employees a chance to shine.
• Tell your story: Writing your own content gives you the ability to infuse it with your own style, humor and history.

2. Storytelling:

Storytelling goes hand-in-hand with content marketing. Stories can be about your customers, employees or the company itself. Every once in a while, let people see what goes on behind the scenes. Here is some more inspiration from companies that have used storytelling successfully.

3. Vanity metrics are OUT. Engagement metrics are IN.

Forget number of followers. Forget silly Facebook "get more followers" contests. Concentrate on the followers you have. Engage. This could be scary or it could be a game-changer for your business. Respond to customer requests on Facebook and Twitter just like you would if they called your customer service rep, or if they walked in your front door. Who cares if 5,000 unengaged and ignored people are following you?

4. Visual communication:

Whether it's a video or an infographic, telling your story in a visual format will help you expand your content offerings to a new audience. Pinterest, the new darling of social media, in based almost solely on images as opposed to text. And YouTube, owned by Internet giant Google, treats video content very favorably in its search engine results. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

5. Social and mobile dominance:

After all the hype over social media dies down, and we all have smart phones, then what? The smaller screens have implications as to how we deliver content to our audiences. While we used to do platform testing across different browsers on a PC, we should now be asking our audience what device they prefer instead. Also, we should critically examine the need for apps when a mobile site may be more user-friendly.

It's pretty amazing that the ancient art of storytelling is still playing such a prominent role in our modern communications, isn't it? I'd love to see some examples of how Central Iowa Companies are telling their stories. Please leave a comment.

 

Claire Celsi is the Director of Public Relations at Lessing-Flynn in Des Moines, Iowa.

 

How the media failed us, and Lance Armstrong

English: Cyclist Lance Armstrong at the 2008 Tour de Gruene Individual Time Trial, 1 November 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The media is sometimes referred to as the fourth estate of government. That is how truly powerful it is. But sometimes the media meets its match in power, stature, intrigue, and hope. Let me tell you how the media failed us in the Lance Armstrong debacle. It's a cautionary tale that has happened before. Think WWII, Te'o, and a number of other stories. Sometimes the media WANTS to believe so badly that the story will have a good ending that it misses the obvious, skips fact checking and YES... even wantonly disregards the real story. Lance Armstrong's fall from grace was one of those epic stories.

First of all, Lance's story is great, if you believe all the hype. Cyclist recovers from near-fatal disease to win an epic 7 straight Tour De France titles. Then he starts a famous cancer foundation that raises of millions of dollars to help cancer patients. And all the while, Lance is fighting off constant attacks on his sterling reputation. Rare was the negative mainstream media article. The sports media fell over themselves (sometimes literally) to get time with him. The dark side and perhaps most insidious side of Armstong's personality was to demand 100% loyalty to the myth and legend of Lance. Any journalist who came around asking funny questions was immediately banned from ever talking to him again.

So the media - whose job depends on access to Lance - had a decision to make. Either cover him in a positive light, or lose the right to write about him in an authoritative manner. It was like choosing between a rock and a hard place.

Journalism works under the supposition of a thing called the Master Narrative. The narrative is built over time and is a premise somewhat based on what has happened in the past. Once the narrative is built and is repeated time after time, it's hard for anyone, even members of the media, to dislodge it from their subconscious thinking. The Lance Master Narrative was well-known and famous. Since no one with any more credibility than Lance was accusing him of wrongdoing for so long, Lance Armstrong had years to refute any statements that might arise against him. He even got the chance to paint the opposition with the brush of his choosing. In this case the brush was named "You have no proof."

It was only when mainstream journalists who had no connection with Armstrong (or his merry band of thug protectors)  - started writing about his coverup that people began to doubt Armstrong's story. It took a huge number of people speaking up against him to even nudge public opinion against him. Lance Armstrong's master narrative was so powerful that even the U.S. Justice Department barely put a dent in it.

Citizen journalism and the sworn testimony of his former teammates were the only things that finally did Lance in. The great and all powerful Oz had been exposed, once and for all.

Lance's master narrative included the belief that he was a super-being. A survivor. A determined athlete. A humanitarian. A good person. Anything that did not fit with that narrative was ignored by the media for a very long time. Even when it was reported on by the mainstream media, for the longest time the reporters went to great lengths to report Lance's sometimes implausible side of the story.

It was only when a critical amount of evidence and confessions piled up into an irrefutable  and well-documented tattle, that the media stopped using the Lance Armstong master narrative. It came unceremoniosly crashing to the ground.

The media does indeed play an important role in our society. When the media builds a master narrative built on "persona" of one charismatic individual,  that is where is becomes dangerous. The media allowed itself to become mesmerized with Lance Armstrong. That is why his fall was no long and hard. There was absolutely nothing big or strong enough to break his fall.

Claire Celsi is the Director of Public Relations at Lessing-Flynn in Des Moines, Iowa.

Be prepared for the worst day of your professional life

What is a crisis? My definition: Any scenario where people or animals are injured or killed, or where a financial breach has occurred that needs an immediate response. That's it. 

As I watch the tragedy unfold in Newtown, Connecticut, I'm keenly observing the clues to what sort of crisis communications plan was in place for the unlikely scenario that ultimately occurred.

So far, I've been impressed by what I've observed. Parents were informed quickly by text message via the "campus alert system" to come to pick up their children. The Sandy Hook Elementary School website - though somewhat overloaded now - functioned to give quick bios of the teachers and principal when there wasn't much information available for reporters.

What exactly is a crisis communications plan? It's not a disaster evacuation plan or a physical escape scenario. Every business and organization should have a plan on how to evacuate a building due to a disaster, or how to hide from an intruder. A crisis communications plan is different. It's how you respond to the outside world after the disaster happens.

The media is a voracious creature after a disaster happens. It serves many functions: to inform others of a pending threat, to report on the unfolding scenario, and to summarize the facts of the case to the public. Communications professionals should lead the effort within their organization to write and implement a crisis communications plan. 

The Connecticut State Police have been disciplined in their messaging and have obviously been trained to mete out messages in a particular, legalistic order. For example, the shooter's name was not officially released until he had been methodically identified, even though some media outlets had already released his name hours earlier. For communicators in the private sector, saying "no comment" is not advisable.

The essence of crisis communciations planning is thinking of the worst disaster scenario ahead of time, and getting as many communications vehicles in place as possible. In this situation, it appears that parents were informed by emergency robo-calls, giving directions to what had happened and where to pick up their children.

Communicators should lead a team of professionals in your organization to create a very simple plan to follow in case of an emergency. The basics are as follows:

1. Preparation: Create key messages, web pages, calling trees, etc. ahead of time, to be used after the emergency occurs.
2. Control: It should be decided in advance who is the spokesperson to the victims and the media. It doesn't help anyone if unauthorized spokespeople without the latest information are allowed to speak to the media.
3. Access to the plan: Create the plan and give everyone a copy so that it may be accessed remotely. Better yet, hold emergency drills to assure that everyone knows their role. Include passwords to all website content management systems and social media passwords. 
4. Backup plans: Think in terms of Plan A and Plan B. If you are thwarted in trying to execute Plan A, you will be prepared. For example, if you cannot gain access to your computers at work to make website updates, make sure people know how to access the site remotely.

To create a crisis communications plan, gather your most senior staff members together and get started. It should take a least a few weeks to write and refine a plan. When it's done, use every communications channel available to get the plan out to everyone involved. It's especially important to let everyone know that it exists and to practice using it regularly. If you need help getting started, or don't have time to coordinate the plan, hire a public relations professional to get you started. 

Claire Celsi is the Director of Public Relations at Lessing-Flynn in Des Moines, Iowa.