By far, the most interesting detail about Public Relations and Marketing in the ‘digital’ phase is how the target audience is not just a target anymore. It is the owner and director of your communications campaign. You and I will get the client’s message across only if the message has been approved by the customer and only if she’s had a say in its style and content. As Brand or PR consultants, our jobs now include identifying where and what the customer is saying, rather than just figuring out which newspaper he reads with his breakfast or which TV channel he prefers over the weekend.

The Information Democracy: The most important aspects here are freedom of expression AND the huge, unbiased, malleable, customizable, shareable, and powerful platform for this expression. Then there is the conversation, and the noise. Our expertise will have to include tuning out the noise and listening very carefully to the important conversation, with minimal interference. Going overboard will only result in some more noise, which the customer will choose to ignore. Public Relations will need to listen to and participate in the information democracy, to be accepted and to be effective.

The Community: Focus on more of ‘Nurturing’ than ‘talking’. Customers do not want to listen to a brand message; they want to dictate the terms of loyalty and communication. They are not interested in your Orkut/Facebook group if they will not meet like-minded people or if they will not have a good time. They will not share your viral video with their contacts if it is not funny/shocking/interesting enough. Creation of multi-storied platforms for the community to come together and engage is what that will save the day.

The ‘Negative’ coverage: Opening up to collaboration will involve brickbats. Lots of them. Even if your client is the most respected in the business and spends a huge chuck of his budget on post sales service and CSR, there WILL be brickbats. This is a good thing as it is proof that you are definitely listening in. Second, you will not only know that customers are unhappy, but also know why they are unhappy, in which location they are unhappy, where are they expressing their unhappiness and what they are saying as a result, verbatim, and also who all agree with them. Imagine the kind of value this feedback has. While the sales manager will keep wondering why the flagship product has suddenly slowed down, you will have the specific details. Imagine the impact of Public Relations here when you design and implement a campaign to address the specific issue at hand.

The power of Good Ideas: Ideas make a comeback! Take a look at this simple but extremely powerful Youtube campaign on Diet Coke demonstrating the explosive effect when you mix diet coke with mentos. The video generated millions of hits and several clone videos and contests across. Good ideas stand out and now the canvas has transcended the story board to become the World Wide Web. Collaboration will give you the inspiration and the audience.

The Win-Win situation: Of course, the brand will get the loyalty, the feedback and the mileage. What about the customer? Why should HE collaborate with you? What is in store for him? The digital age will balance this benefit equation. As companies across the world nurture their communities and brands become part of life, customers will seek incentive- A good time, a ‘shout’ platform, complimentary products, recognition, and importance. Collaboration will compel us to come up with relevant and viable combinations that will not only entice customers but also motivate them into collaborating with us.

I have observed a very curious trend in media, over the last one year- A whole new breed of young journalists suddenly gaining a lot of ground and visibility in almost all publications and TV channels, across the country. While the seasoned journalist is still very much around, the gen X (Y?) media poses a new challenge, and excitement, tossing out of the window the revered set of media relations pointers we’ve collated since the genesis of PR in India.

Many of these young journalists are smart, savvy and rather fearless. The in-depth stories, the frequent bylines and the probing questions, all demand that we take them seriously. Having had the opportunity to deal with many of them, I have collated a personal reference of pointers that have proved very useful when dealing with a young journalist. I would definitely appreciate additions to this.

1. Be prepared with details: Keeping all the facts and figures, even the most atypical ones, is important as the young journalist asks a lot of questions. While the more seasoned ones know that certain questions will not be answered and will be evaded, the new ones tend to demand for answers and explanations.

2. Do not escalate issues: I have had some big issues where a journalist had behaved in a rather unprofessional/unethical manner. For instance, once a journalist refused to complete a food review as a tiff with a friend had upset her mid-way! Not only had we taken appointment with the client a week in advance, we had made arrangements for the entire F&B for the evening. While it really was tempting to call up her editor and report the issue, we realized that it was best to sort the matter then and there. No matter how close you are to the boss, do remember that today’s rookie is tomorrow’s editor-in-chief. Plus, you also stand a chance of ruffling feathers incase the editor is drinking buddies with the concerned journalist. Be firm and reinforce the importance of the task at hand and inform the journalist of the effort gone into it. More often than not, you will get your message across. If nothing works, ask for an alternative and confirm further action immediately.

3. Follow-up incessantly: Do this with both the journalist as well as the editor concerned. This not only ensures that you get the coverage but also conveys a sense of importance of the story to the journalist. Once a journalist actually said to an executive in my team-“Oh, I didn’t realize this story is so important to your client!” Also, this acts as a reminder and a great way of building relationships with the concerned media.

4. Socialize. Socialize. Socialize: They are a lot of fun and are great friends with lots of journalists. I actually met a very senior journalist through a trainee, over drinks. This is also a great platform for getting to know their psyche and their general opinions. Add them on Gtalk and Facebook; few will refuse an invitation.

5. Do not underestimate: A reputed financial publication in Bangalore has a very talented trainee journalist whose bylined stories are featured in the daily almost every day. When she had turned up at an important press conference a couple of months back, we were all very worried. When she started asking questions, not only did she come across as smart but also very, very thorough. No surprise, the client was impressed and we got a big story.

6. Brief the client: It is most challenging when you have an inexperienced journalist turning up for interactions. Reinforce the importance of the publication to the client and share samples of the journalist’s work, if possible. Also prepare a detailed briefing document, focusing on the journalist’s qualities like depth of stories, style of interacting, industry knowledge, etc., instead of experience.

7. Do not forget to brief the journalist on the client: Share company literature and if possible, have a long chat the day before, on the client. Last month, a new journalist asked the global head of one of my clients to give an intro about the company to him! Enough said, it did not go down well with the client at all. It also makes sense to give the journalist an overview of the client’s industry and competition if he/she is very inexperienced. He will remain thankful for increasing his knowledge base, the client will be happy about the quality of interaction, and you might get a more prominent story in the bargain.

8. Share visuals: Doesn’t matter if the client is in the manufacturing business, share as many pictures/videos as possible. These are definitely more interesting than plain pitch notes and are much more appealing to the younger audience. Plus, I see a lot of pictures getting picked up for industry/trend stories magnifying a client’s participation in them.

9. Draw a line: It is very easy to get carried away when you chat with someone everyday and catch up outside of work regularly. Please remember that even the junior-most of journalists expect respect and professionalism, and rightly so. Maintain the same level of deference that you would employ for a senior journalist and stay away from gossip as much as you can. It will backfire for sure.

10. Share appreciation when you feel a job is well-done: Drop in a thank you note for a great article and call up if you can. Even if a story is not about a client and you think it is fantastic, let them know. Not only is it a great booster for someone, who is new, it also shows that you actually follow their publication. However, be wary of appreciation bordering on flattery. It is easy to catch and leaves a bad taste no matter how close you are. Be honest and you will do just fine.

Strangely, it was a client who taught me this equation, when I’d started my career in PR. I still remember the conversation with the MD of the company, him extolling the importance of PR in his company and me getting very impressed with what had landed in my lap. I was suddenly glad that I had decided to go for PR after college and the follow-up job given to me as my first PR assignment ever, started to make sense. What’s surprising is that not once during the meeting did he mention ‘media’, ‘coverage’ or ‘output’. “I do not want my PR agency to give me press coverage; I want you all to help me build my brand.” I was a convert for life.

Now, I am still to come across another client who shares this opinion. We all know how our monthly dossiers often become nightmares without the big numbers. Though I try to stick to the hallowed equation, I sometimes do find myself juggling interactions and press releases which only serve the purpose of the great Indian CC Output. It’s almost funny how clients can get obsessive about these things. I’m sure PR in India has a long way to go before our clients start to acknowledge the equation, but honestly, how many of us believe in it ourselves?

As PR professionals, we know it in our heads that that PR is about two-way communication with, and building perceptions among, the target group, which most definitely requires media to maintain third-party credibility. All this jazz roughly translates to focussed communication aimed at improving/adjusting/inspiring brand-image. When the target customer reads in her favourite magazine that the latest mobile phone from the client company is a must-have luxury gizmo, many things happen at once. The reader’s awareness of the brand improves a notch; the phone registers in the mental ‘things I want’ list; the customer’s old phone gets a thought or two; the client company gains brownie points for being premium; if the client is already premium, the ‘price on request’ below the phone description adds a little to the aspiration value, improving product desirability; and so on. All of this might or might not lead to a sale but definitely adds to the branding campaign.

Of course, we could say that after years in the industry we do not need to think about the consequential process at all and that we automatically know what to do. Yeah right!! Few clients even LET agencies decide between a release and a press conference for an announcement. Let us say we go for a press conference, what do we do? We start inviting everyone on the media list, start drafting collateral for the press kits, follow-up with the media, arrange for AV, follow-up some more, conduct a recce of the venue, follow-up, prepare a briefing document, follow-up even more while the poor journalist from a small regional daily is wondering why his readers would be interested in a business alliance between two purely B2B industrial manufacturing companies! Of course, he will attend the conference because his favorite Mr. PR ‘so-and-so’ invited him and of course he will give ‘coverage’ because the same so-and-so won’t stop calling if he didn’t.

In the end, what we have is a fat dossier and a big number for the CC output, and a happy client who thinks the press conference was a huge success, and by the way, also thinks that his PR agency is a media post office.

More than convincing the clients, we need to convince ourselves of the importance of what we do, in the larger scheme of things. The value we bring to a client’s brand is not the number of clips we generate in a quarter but the real impact they create, isn’t it? The equation only makes sense because brand building is exactly what PR is meant to do in the first place. (Picture source: Dadawan)

“But I want two corporate blogs, one each on Wordpress and Blogger! I do not want to lose out on any section of my target online audience!!”

A prospective client for digital PR made this statement recently with some enthusiasm and a lot of exasperation, after my two hour long presentation on social media. One deep breath later, I managed to draw an analogy he could understand and pointed out that the same way he wouldn’t keep two email addresses. Your browser may not support display of this image. Two corporate blogs would just dilute efforts. The client across the table was the internal marketing/advertising head. The next two hours were spent detailing what exactly PR is, what it does, and how different it is from advertising or bribing the media!

Many pitches down, I’ve realized that selling digital PR to clients, whether current or prospective, can be quite a frustrating job. While some clients might have greater understanding of what PR is and can see more clearly how an online campaign can complement a traditional one, many either confuse it with online advertising/marketing or feel that it’s just another platform for press release distribution.

Five ways to help ease the process:

1. Do an induction meeting: Just to set things straight. When you mention the possibility of a digital PR campaign to your client, you are thinking social networking groups and micro messaging. The client could be thinking Google ads and bannering, like we experienced the other day when a client kept probing us for a list of Indian websites for banner ads in our strategy presentation. Go with a presentation and educate the client on what the whole deal is all about.

2. Compare with traditional PR: Tell the client how different an online campaign is. If possible, go with case studies. If relevant case studies are not available within your organization, try sourcing one from an international campaign. Focus on strengths like intimacy with target audience, feedback generation, control, spontaneity and course correction. Give details on how the online space can complement a traditional PR campaign.

3. Indicate size by numbers: Before the client can rubbish the idea as something ‘new-fangled’, indicate the size and scope of the online medium using crisp statistics. Use India-specific numbers wherever possible. Present screen shots of brands using social media for PR. Do mention that while internet penetration is still low in India, it is among the fastest growing in the world.

4. Manage Expectations: Reinforce the dominance and significance of traditional PR. For some clients, you can rely on social media PR entirely. For most others, you can only look at it as an important value-add. Discuss with clients in advance of what they can expect from digital PR. Be very clear on what it entails and what it does not. Remove any confusion before you start working on a strategy. Outline the kind of audience they can reach out to and the messages they can communicate.

5. Discuss the tools: Discussing the entire process of a digital campaign with a client aids understanding. For instance, though a specific client might not require using memes or micro messaging for the online campaign, talking about it might help to convey the scope of digital PR. Plus; this can also be a great platform to discuss and shortlist tools that can be used for the client. Not only will you be able to work on a more effective strategy plan, you will save a lot of hassle trying to explain the nuts and bolts later.

Digital PR is exciting. Go prepared and be enthusiastic. If it’s relevant, the client will definitely bite.