By Wes Pedersen
Take a deep ah-Spring breath and consider nine steps that could benefit you in this era of the New Public Relations.
1. Refresh your vow to make ethics, integrity, honesty and transparency action words in your professional and personal vocabularies.
2. Deep-six the old notion that big press is the standard PR way to go. Climb aboard the Now: Deep-probe research combined with the fast evolving social media has created the new fact-based, people-oriented public relations, making it more scientific, more of the profession it has always wanted to be.
3. If you are using social media to reach out to mass audiences, remember that they are essentially rabble rousers. Your job is to tame the rabble, to segment out your vital, elite audiences and convert them to your cause. ons.
4. Stand vigil over this whirlwind of change. Go to your next conferences fully briefed on the very latest changes in communication and message transmission. Be among the first to alert your clients and coworkers to news that could affect their worlds.
5. Never forget that politics is the driving force behind much of public relations and all of public affairs. Don’t think it’s beneath you. Don’t rely on cheat sheets. Know what key members of Congress and the contenders in campaigns are trying to say on key issues. It is especially important that you know what political action committees are. Know what they can and cannot do.
6. Volunteer your expertise to worthwhile causes. Pro bono work has its rewards. You’ll widen your circle of professional friends and shine up your resume with any project you undertake to help. Show your boss that your volunteerism reflects well on his agency or company. And get on with the volunteer projects, unless you’ve got a situation where fattening the bottom line doesn’t leave room for volunteer work.
7. Recognize that you can have a winning role in bolstering the reputation of your chosen field of work. Teach PR at colleges of your choice. Write op-eds. Do a video for high school kids contemplating entry into public relations.
When critics in the media insult public relations and its practitioners, respond with positive rebuttals to the misguided and to their editors. Don’t expect your professional organizations to do the job. They’ve been trying for years without much appreciable success to get “the media to appreciate our work.”
8. Don’t forget the basics. Even if you think a reporter or editor is a friend, do not bug him, or her, about a story or idea you’ve sent along. Disrupt a line of thought when they are on deadline and you will feel the freeze for years. Heed the media deadlines like the commandments from on high they really are.
9. Say thanks to the helpers, the good guys, the doers, the movers, and the shaker-uppers. The first lesson in public relations should be, “Always say thank you” to anyone who helps you in some way, does you a special favor, makes things happen for you, or – in-house, say—challenges custom to grease the way for you.
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Wes Pedersen is a retired Foreign Service Officer and principal at Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations Washington, D.C.
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