Cooksey Communications

How many public relations professionals make the effort to read original, hard copies of the print media they monitor and pursue on behalf of their clients? How many actually watch the broadcast versions of news shows or other programs they may deal with down the road?

Most likely not nearly to the degree they did before the advent of the Internet. The pervasive media presence online has changed the tactics of media relations. A few clicks of a mouse, and it’s possible to bring up a vast online repository of reporters’ and editors’ work. Few dreamed of such speed and ease during the ancient offline era. Browsing online provides a good idea very quickly about what topics a journalist covers and his or her particular slant. (Yes, even journalists are biased.)

Something is missing

Something essential to understanding is missing from online media research, however. Online articles collected in a search essentially have the same or similar standing, even if they aren’t the same length. When you read through an actual hard copy of a newspaper or magazine, you easily grasp the impact of a story and the importance the publication assigns to it. It is on the front page or inside? Is it above or below the newspaper’s fold? Yes, many news media are now offering digital replicas of their print versions for mobile devices, but it does not compare to the analog experience.

Reading through even just a few hard copies of a newspaper or magazine will reveal the star reporters and the lesser lights of the masthead. Moreover, most community newspapers are not available in full online, and they can be important to many clients, too.

When it comes to media, Bill Gates didn’t quite nail it. Even more than content, context is king.

The real thing vs. pixels

The Internet is also helpful for broadcast journalism. It’s possible to browse through online archives of news shows in markets clear across country to get a sense of how the station presents the day’s events and the relationships between the anchors and the field reporters. But it’s not like seeing that day’s news broadcast as it happens. Often these shows hold PR ideas for clients that practitioners can implement that day or the next, depending on the urgency.

Who can forget the JetBlue flight attendant who resigned in a blaze of glory?

There are several versions of an event that happened as Flight 1052 was taxiing to the gate back in 2010. Afterward, Steven Slater announced in salty language over the public address system that he had been abused by a passenger and that he was quitting his crummy job. Then, two beers in hand, he deployed the emergency chute and slid away to employment freedom.

Now that makes a lasting impression. It earned him mentions on national evening newscasts… and an arrest later in the day on multiple charges.

Office workers may not be able to quit in the same grand style, but they can still make an impression when moving on, too. 

5 ways to leave your workplace

Here are five ways to leave a lasting impression with your company president, supervisor, colleagues, clients and vendors.

Dodge a bullet. Quit while your boss or supervisor is on vacation. This avoids all of those messy goodbye conversations. Be sure to exit the office as quietly as possible, and to not say farewell to any of your colleagues, so no one knows you’ve gone. With any luck, it will take two weeks before someone notices your absence and wonders about it.

Repetition is paramount. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them again. For that reason, make sure that you’ve typed out a resignation letter for each day of the week that you’re resigning, so you’ll have one at the ready to hand over at the right time. Or you can hand over all five at once, for emphasis.

Make a statement. Use that small post-it note for your formal goodbye notice. And if someone has the gall to ask you to write it down on letterhead, or even a simple piece of paper, just reply, “You do it; I don’t work here anymore.”

Act the part. We know you might be surprised that someone accepted your resignation and didn’t find it in their hearts to beg you to stay. So, make sure you make your feelings clear. Mope around, sigh heavily, sit in your office and stare at your computer or text your friends all day. Don’t participate in team meetings and, by all means, don’t actually do any work.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Not interested in messing with the various HR policies you agreed to when you joined the company? Simply don’t show up one day and don’t bother to inform anyone of your whereabouts or intentions. You don’t work there anymore, so why should they care? You certainly don’t. (Just be sure to answer the door when the police come knocking to make sure you are okay.)

Rethinking the impression you leave

In case anyone is wondering, yes, the five ways to leave your place of employment recounted above are strictly tongue-in-cheek. Yet, sadly, these are actual anecdotes.

Yes, you only have one chance to make a first impression. But the same is true with your last impression. How you leave a job says as much about you as the work you did while in your job. You may not need a job reference from your employer, but you can be sure that the impression you leave will eventually come back around.

"New media channels will continue to explode, creating challenges for the PR industry as we try to reach widely varied audiences through the vast number of new outlets."

Does anyone write by hand these days? Is there any real need for handwriting anymore?

After all, this is the age of electronic access excess. We’ve got email and instant messaging and social media sites and blog posts we can get to immediately and nonstop thanks to wireless Internet, smart phones, tablets, or laptops that are always nearby. We get news and music and sports and weather on our handheld devices anywhere, anytime.

That’s precisely the problem.

We are “connected” yet still isolated by the torrent of information that flows past. We no longer have the luxury of time. Time for ourselves. Time to relax. Time to reflect. Time to digest our experiences and arrive at some insights. Most of us probably don’t even recall emails from six hours ago.

There is something tenuous and impermanent about electronic communications even if they live on forever in the digital ether. Maybe it’s because all those ones and zeros come at us so fast and in such large quantities that we have no way to take in all of it or even a significant portion of it. It just melts into one big digital blur.

The handwriting-retention link

Although Common Core education standards de-emphasize hand writing after the first grade, researchers are now saying that hand writing is more important to learning and remembering than previously realized. Writing down notes by hand while listening to a lecture, for example, forces us to focus on the gist and helps us recall it later. Writing by hand may even positively affect our ability to reason.

While handwriting gets a second look from educators and cognitive scientists, let’s not ignore its importance in business right now. Writing by hand forces us to slow down and focus, something we don’t do much any longer. Usually, our attention is split in so many ways we no longer have the ability or energy to pay real attention to any one thing or any one person. (Multitasking is highly overrated, even if it’s often essential to get everything done during the workday.)

When we take time to write out a hard copy thank you or holiday greeting card, however, we tell the recipients that they are special to us. We pay them the ultimate compliment of our time, attention, and thought. We also stand out because so few business people write by hand. The written word is powerful for business development and employee engagement.

“Get me some ink!”

Now that’s a cringe-inducing public relations stereotype straight out of Hollywood. Yet many business people still harbor inaccurate expectations about what PR can and cannot do for their companies. If you think of marketing as an umbrella, then PR is one of the spokes that keep the device working. Remove or weaken that PR support, and the entire marketing structure does not function as intended and the rain comes pouring in.

With the preceding in mind, here are a few PR myths that are best consigned to the same dusty backroom shelves that hold the old celluloid favorites.

Myth 1: Public relations isn’t a core business function

Bite your tongue! PR is a much a core business function as accounting or manufacturing. Find and retain solid PR professionals and solicit their advice and perspectives in the same strategic manner that you would your attorney or accountant. Keep your PR advisors in the dark about major company problems or challenges at your peril. Just as most attorneys prefer to settle out of court, PR pros know the best possible PR is resolving problems before they become public. One of the industry’s emerging trends is the PR pro as a business consultant offering critical skills above and beyond communications.

Myth 2: Public relations is a quick fix

PR is no instant cure-all for company woes. Instant media exposure tends to be the kind of attention that businesses don’t want. Think British Petroleum and the gulf oil spill or the Enron collapse. Positive coverage takes strategic thinking and constant, painstaking effort over time. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are not routine. What looks like a breakthrough from the outside is usually the result of long-term planning and weeks or even months of hard work.

Myth 3: PR and marketing don’t mix

See the second paragraph above. PR is a critical specialty within the entire marketing universe. Recognizing the synergy, many PR firms provide more than just earned media services. They integrate this expertise with other strategic marketing capabilities, such as advertising and promotions, in order to ensure that all of these activities complement each other and not work at cross purposes. If a company’s earned media (PR) is saying one thing, but its paid media and other branding are talking something else, potential customers will be confused and turned off.

Myth 3.5: Keep this story exclusive

While public relations professionals often play key roles in branding, the disciplined focus on marketing messages also represents a media relations challenge. What companies most want to discuss in the media is rarely what the media most want to cover.

Think about it. How much effort do businesses put into their news release boilerplates? Has any journalist ever quoted from these corporate descriptions? The only part of a boilerplate that media people use at all is the link to the company website.

The gap between company talking points and what journalists actually care about is where PR pros tread. Think of it as a delicate dance between raindrops.

Context is king

In this era of online content marketing, it’s possible to spread client messages unfiltered by journalism gatekeepers. Millions of businesses do this every day through their own websites, videos, blogs (like this one), e-books, forums, and other digital avenues.

There’s still no substitute, however, for the validation of earned media. A company or executive profile, quote, interview, bylined article, or guest appearance provides that implicit third-party endorsement that other forms of exposure simply cannot match.

Context is critical for credibility.

There’s been talk lately about the disappearance of reporters altogether, but that’s unlikely, even if their roles continue to evolve. For one thing, the explosion of online media necessitates an equal expansion of content, and creating quality content takes the same kinds of skills that journalists develop in the course of doing their jobs. And the need for credibility means that the public will keep consuming third-party media even as they also take in corporate generated media, too.

So how do PR pros balance the business development needs of clients with the coverage interests of the media? For starters, set realistic client expectations by suggesting they think of the media as customers with unique information needs that client and agency can meet by following certain guidelines.

Transactional analysis

Most reporters think in transactional terms for their jobs. Beat reporters find it useful to develop relationships with certain sources, but the majority of media people don’t have the time or energy to cultivate relationships.

They want what they want when they want it, which is preferably yesterday. Indeed, deadlines that were formerly once or perhaps a couple of times a day unfold now in the second-by-second social media stream. It’s that fast and almost impossible to keep abreast of, but that’s the reporter’s lot.

PR pros can step in and ease their burden by:

1. Offering what the reporter (not the client) thinks is a good idea for a news or feature article.

2. Making available instant access to quotable experts while they are writing or putting that story/feature together.

3. Doing at least some of their homework/legwork for them.