Make Yourself Safe from Negative Public Relations

 Make Yourself Safe from Negative Public Relations

Can you define negative public relations?
As a manager of a company, nonprofit, or association, you should know that negative public relations has little effect on the actions of the key external audiences that have the most impact on your operations.

If you want to achieve your managerial goals, it won't work because it won't affect the behavior of external stakeholders.
Plus, it never gets those important outsiders to see things your way or do what you need them to do for your division, subsidiary, or department to flourish.
On the flip side, effective public relations can change people's minds and bring about the desired behavioral shifts. To be sure, special events, pamphlets, and news releases aren't enough to make public relations worthwhile.
To protect yourself against negative public relations, you need know that public relations are based on the following premise: individuals behave in predictable ways when given information based on their own perceptions of the facts. Public relations is successful when it aims to build, alter, or strengthen public opinion by communicating with and influencing the individuals whose actions have the greatest impact on an organization.
Positive public relations can have surprising effects, such as the following: the involvement of previously untapped prospects; increased sales from existing customers; fortified ties to influential members of the healthcare, education, labor, and government sectors; and improved relations with governing bodies and legislative bodies.
New proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures, an uptick in showroom visits, an increase in membership applications, chances to serve and be sponsored, better relations with activist groups, more feedback channels, and new connections with thought leaders and special events are all signs that the effort is picking up steam.
How critical is it that the people outside your company who matter the most have a positive impression of your business, its offerings, and your services? Very important, therefore make sure your public relations team is on board with it. Make sure they fully grasp the fact that their views will nearly always influence their actions, which can either benefit or hinder your unit.
Discuss the PR plan with your team in depth, paying close attention to the sections that outline how you will collect data and keep tabs on developments via polling your most influential external stakeholders. This kind of question: how well-versed are you in our company? What is your level of familiarity with our company, its offerings, and its personnel? Has there been any prior communication between us, and if so, was it satisfactory? Did you encounter any issues with our staff or processes?
Obviously, if you have the means to do so, you can hire experienced surveyors to oversee the program's perception monitoring phases. But remember that public relations experts are also in the perception and behavior industry and can work toward the same goal: exposing inaccurate information, harmful assumptions, rumors, misinformation, and other forms of poor perception that could lead to harmful actions.
We may discuss your public relations objective now. A good one will address the outliers that surfaced when you were tracking the perceptions of your target population. Probably, it will necessitate clearing up that harmful misunderstanding, resolving that blatant error, or addressing that detrimental rumor.
In public relations, the truth is that objectives necessitate plans to reach them. You may either change people's perceptions, create new ones, or strengthen the ones that already exist when faced with a challenge to their perception or opinion. Make sure the new plan meshes nicely with your revised PR objective; otherwise, it will be like putting ice cream on corned beef and cabbage. For instance, if the evidence calls for a "reinforce" approach, you shouldn't choose "change" as your strategy.
Properly worded remedial language is an essential for your public relations staff. We are seeking phrases that are captivating, convincing, and credible while also being precise and true because convincing an audience to your viewpoint is quite difficult. What this means is that if you want to change someone's mind and get them to act in a certain way, you have to change their perception.
Here, you'll have to decide which communication strategies will get your message over to the people you're trying to reach. Get back together with your communications experts and go over your message one more time to make sure it makes an impression. Dozens of strategies are at your disposal. These can range from briefings for consumers to tours of facilities, emails, pamphlets, talks with media, newsletters, in-person meetings, and countless more. Make sure the strategies you choose have a track record of success with people who are similar to your target demographic.
Instead of employing more high-profile communications like press releases or appearances on talk shows, you can consider presenting it to smaller groups if the old adage about the credibility of a message dependent on its delivery mode is correct. When someone suggests writing a progress report, you should consider yourself notified. Once again, it's time to take your public relations team out into the field to gauge how your external audience perceives you. You will now be closely monitoring for indications that your communication strategies have been effective and that the unfavorable impression is being changed in your favor, using many of the same questions utilized in the initial benchmark session.
If you find yourself becoming impatient, remember that you can always speed things up by increasing the frequency and variety of your communications strategies.
By positively impacting the actions of those crucial external audiences that have the greatest impact on your operation, this will naturally turn negative public relations into positive PR. It will accomplish what you want it to do by influencing the actions of external stakeholders, which will help you reach your management goals. And it will achieve this by winning over those influential outsiders to your point of view, inspiring them to take the necessary steps for your organization to thrive.
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This article and its resource box are available for use in any online or offline publication, including ezines, newsletters, and websites. Send a copy to mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net if you wish. Including the instructions and resource box, the word count is 1100.
Work by Robert A. Kelly, 2004. ZZZZZZ

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