What are the best practices for public and media relations?

It's common for PR teams to rely on 'output' and 'engagement' metrics such as coverage hits and readership numbers, but these do not show if activities have shifted perceptions across stakeholder groups. Instead, PR teams can establish regular surveys and focus groups to understand perceptions on areas such as reliability, financial strength, social impact, leadership, employer brand, and innovation, to get a true sense of strengths and weaknesses. This makes it much easier to show the link between PR activities and desired business outcomes. The Harris-Fombrun Reputation Quotient can be a great source of inspiration when deciding what to measure, but it's always best to tailor your framework to match the needs of your business.

For me, the key is in understanding different stakeholders, their interests and therefore how you craft your communication (what do you aim to achieve vs What’s your audience’s interest).

Apart from the important pillars of a good reputation, a strategic approach, and a compelling story, it all comes down to an authentic relationship. This relationship is built over time between pitching a story and requesting a seeded article to be published. It's not only about the best-pitched story but also about understanding the editor's passion and identifying the stories that he or she will be excited about.

Media relations best practices are rooted in great storytelling and having deep knowledge of the media landscape. To excel, you must be reading media coverage every single day. Relying on archaic tactics like press releases and “news jacking” will only get you so far. The most successful efforts uncover compelling stories (often found in the minutiae and not in blatant promotion) and mold them to fit with specific coverage. It’s not about just pitching The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, but knowing that a specific newsletter, column, segment or podcast is the best venue for telling a particular story.

Remember, PR and media relations aren't for lead generation, website traffic, backlinks, and other irrelevant objectives. Always make sure to know, and get your client educated about the right scope of your PR efforts, to get your job easier. Your objectives must move around creating an awareness about the business, building its reputation, positioning the business and all its associated brands as well as executives. In addition, you have to build a proactive approach for crisis management.

Its important to recognise the role that leveraging a spokesperson's persona in the media can play in increasing audience engagement. Yes, you must know and cater your communications to your audience, however, lead generation often comes as a result of putting comment/insights out there which entices those who consume it to respond. Play into your more charismatic spokespeople who are aware of the limits of what can be said and what can't but are willing to be punchy and can help the organisation to cut above the noise. Those are the ones that will help you most to demonstrate the value of comms most effectively.

In the rush to get the message out, so many times communicators forget to consider their audience. This is perhaps the most important step for effective communication. It is often as simple as asking the question, "How will this affect the person who reads this?" Then, make sure you address the concerns or questions they will have.

Knowing your publics remains key to realign your strategy in terms of how you plan on communicating effectively. We always forget our internal stakeholders such as your staff members and prioritise the external stakeholders like the media and the public. We need to empower and recognise our staff as our audience as well so that they become ambassadors of our intended messages.

In addition to knowing who your audience is, it’s important to understand what you want your audience to do, think, feel, or say as a result of your communication. What action do you want them to take, and how can you make it easy for them to act? Knowing this information can 1) help you measure your success, 2) shape where and when to communicate, and 3) help you prioritize your messaging.

Audience is the most important step in any strategy in my opinion. Knowing WHO you want to see your messages will change your channels, your tone and your stakeholders. It is always the thing I come back to throughout a process to ensure I am on track. Keeping your audience in mind helps you to achieve your goals in a clear way.

1. Maintain an excellent rapport with the media (key influential media) - who understand your organization, the business, subject and can be important in putting across stories that deliver positive messages to the desired audience. Even if there is no official announcement to make, keeping journalists engaged with insights, information, and updates is critical to maintaining a healthy relationship for further leverage. 2. Messages in Press Releases are often loaded with business jargon, which is of no value to either the media or the stakeholders (readers). Messages must be crafted in such a manner that they convey significance. In a digital era, it is essential to be as crisp as possible, when communicating the message or values.

When crafting your messages you must keep your target audience/personas in mind and ideally tailor it to each stage of the buyer journey. Then get it verified by those personas - your current clients! Then you will know the messaging you have developed is exactly where you need it to be.

The content and the tone of voice are very important to establish long-lasting interest for your company. It depends on your target audience's age, way of life and interests. Simply put - you should speak one language with your target audience. My personal advice: use terminology and even professional slang, which is specific to the particular niche. Also "the language" depends on the platform: in Instagram - creatives and photos will speak for you, in Twitter you need to squeeze your thoughts and messages to 1-2 sentences and be accurate, in Linkedin - use the language of your professional victories and achievements

Don't craft your messages in a vacuum. Cultivate strong internal and external customer relationships that can inform and refine your messages. Your internal customers should be in the C-suite, sales, service, product, customer success, support, and other customer-facing teams. These internal relationships will open the door for communications teams to engage with external customers that can be used to test messages and also validate them in articles and presentations.

What I have found helpful is to educate rather than simply communicate. Especially in an area of expertise that media may not be very well versed in. Context and nuance are very important when crafting messages.

It’s important to choose channels based on a data-backed strategy. If you choose a more comprehensive approach than just owned (earned and paid) - map out your objectives for each based on outlet viewership and audience, conversion rates, sales, etc. Ultimately the return on your investment (time and money) can be predicted to a degree beforehand, then tracked post-campaign(s).

Target channels of interest to your target audience. Your sources of news and information might not reflect those of your target audience. Look at things from their perspective. Understand their challenges and needs.

PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned) is a model categorizing different types of media. Earned media, gained through methods like storytelling and public relations rather than paid advertising, is highly credible. By subtly integrating brands within relevant narratives, as demonstrated in practices at Wizz Air, Ryanair, and AutoScout24, brands achieve powerful results under the 'Earned' category of PESO (see my comment above). This approach, placing the brand 'between the lines', enhances believability and audience engagement. Unlike Owned or Paid media, Earned media leverages the authenticity and trustworthiness of third-party endorsements, making it a preferred channel for genuine brand presence and long-term credibility.

The choice of media is crucial, as the type of media selected already conveys a message (or a meta-message) about who we are and what we want to convey. It is no coincidence that McLuhan coined the popular phrase 'the medium is the message.' Moreover, today the audience seems to be less biased towards forms of paid media, in the sense that it doesn't judge based on the source of the message or whether the sender has paid to get their attention. What it judges most is the intrinsic quality of the message and the consistency of the company in what it says in the message and how it actually behaves.

Be mindful that your audience's preferred channel may also change. Make sure that you're regularly reviewing your targets. If, for example, you're seeing a lot of engagement with articles in a media outlet that you've not been actively targeting, you could be missing a prime platform by channelling your efforts in the wrong direction.

In media relations, the best way to build trust with the media (and by extension, other public stakeholders) is to ensure your employees are properly trained in media relations. The best spokespeople are the subject matter experts (SMEs) in a chosen field; they are the most trusted voices to deliver the message(s). It's all about credibility, believability and accountability. They have the depth and breadth of knowledge to answer the toughest questions that media ask. Gone are the days of a PR spokesperson answering operational questions - not credible or believable.

Don't lie. Whatever you do, do not lie. It's not worth it and it's often very unnecessary. Also, never be too proud to own up when you are wrong. Respect your audiences and do your best to communicate as authentically and genuinely as possible. Avoid jargon.

One of the antiquated aspects of some pr agencies is the career path that moves all pr people from the frontlines up the leadership ladder until they are far removed from the pitching process. Bonding with media takes time and is an artform when done correctly. Given that the barometer for success with a client usually comes down to the coverage secured, those who have the best connections are who you want in the field. They can and should teach others to fish, but it's still wise to keep your top fishers on the boat. My old agency let me choose this career path and it made all the difference. With the number of reporters dwindling and the number of pitches they get increasing, you cant overlook the value of knowing your pitch will be read.

In media relations don't treat your engagements as transactional. Invest in building rapport, providing insight through off the record conversations, and being a source of facts. In my experience the majority of reporters are out to tell a fact based story and are surrounded by sources with their own motives. Amongst a sea of transactional engagements, you can stand out if you've invested the time to build a relationship.

I disagree, this should be your first step. Defining measurement of success comes even before understanding your audience. Measurement and evaluation should come at the mid-point and at the end. Why midpoint - to make sure you are doing the right thing well. Waiting until the end to evaluate creates risk of doing the wrong thing.

Evaluation is inherently tied to setting your outcomes. You should know what you are measuring before you execute your plan otherwise you'll walk into the trap of collecting vanity metrics. Metrics and data should provide you insight into how to pivot or have greater impact. Don't just use them to claim success.

Understanding if you were successful or not means nothing if you don't action that data. That's why this goes far beyond knowing your KPIs or desired end goal, it requires a concerted debrief on the efficacy and impact of your campaign + action plan to put those learnings into practice. Eg) why did this social media post fall short? What could we do differently? What worked when we did this before? What are others doing that we can learn from? The answers to those lines of question (vs. simply did we achieve success?) should be represented in the next strategy or campaign you undertake. Successful comms is no longer a rinse-and-repeat endeavor. With shifting algorithms / evolving landscape, it's an exercise in constant iteration.

Evaluating outcomes in public and media relations is like checking the mirror before stepping out. It's your reality check! It's not just a finale, but a crucial step to strut confidently on the PR runway again. Did your charm woo the crowd or was it a flop? Without evaluating, you're like a chef oblivious to the taste of his soup. So, as you wrap up, dive into the feedback, embrace the applause, learn from the boos, and refine your strategy. Remember, in the PR world, your encore is only as good as your willingness to fine-tune the act!

A step not covered in the article, but very important from my point of view — MAP THE RISKS. A danger foreseen is half avoided, and the best anti-crisis communication is the one that never happened. It's very useful to have a reputation risk map which needs to include Q&A for every risk and anti-crisis mechanisms agreed between everybody potentially involved.

I learned this the hard way. A Dark Reading reporter requested my client's perspective on a hot topic. It was a relatively tight turnaround. 12 hours. The client spokesperson sent back a generic quote. It was unusable. So I responded to him with more guidance and additional questions. He didn't respond. My client contact reached out to another person in the company. He was putting out a client fire. I asked the reporter if there was any wiggle room in the deadline. He extended it by an hour. My client contact reached out to the development team in EMEA. No response. We missed the opportunity. Clients need to make PR a priority. And be ready to answer questions with valuable insight despite a tight deadline.

All communications comes down to a simple process. 1- Define business impact, communications objectives and success metrics. 2- Know your audience. What do you want them to think, feel, do? 3- Build a strategy and plan designed to bullseye strike #1 and #2. 4- Storytelling (not messages) that focus on your "why" not your "what". 5- Quality not quantity driven metrics.

Something I heard a panelist at a recent conference say has really resonated: “silence is a form of communication.” Her advice has stuck with me since I heard it. It is not your - or your organization’s - job to comment on everything. Choose your space, play in it, and stay silent when it’s advantageous to do so. Lastly, I’d remember that silence ≠ saying “no comment” in interviews!

There is a big difference between being proactive and rushing to get something out. Understand when to wait and when to strike fast. Value proposition and tact are not to be overlooked. PR relationships are of a symbiotic nature, based on mutualism. Clients owns the subject matter and value they offer; PR crafts, frames, and delivers messages to parties of interest; Media produces content for a mass audience that spotlights the client, *IF* persuaded by the story at hand. Everyone has a part to play, starting with the client. Active involvement is key to building trust. The core of PR is nurturing - brand reputation, relationships, and values. Prioritizing how this is handled is what makes it successful.

Before we agree on collaborating with the media outlets, first and foremost, it is important to learn about the media agency, how they operate, what kind of stories do they cover, who are the audiences, any political affiliations, and from which country they belong to. It is crucial for the entity to build on the relationship that will determine how they will move forward to understand the story of the society and portray stories that belongs to the community and their culture.