http://www.850businessmagazine.com/component/content/article/65-profile/315-masters-of-the-message-public-policy-public-relations.html

Betty Castor, former state senator and Florida Education Commissioner, has joined Pennington, Moore, Wilkinson, Bell & Dunbar to launch the Center for Education Policy, an advocacy center for education.

- 850 The Business Magazine of Northwest Florida

Most journalists use social media such as Twitter and Facebook as a source

Social media is becoming viewed as a relevant part of journalistic research, study reveals

A US survey has revealed that an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors use social media sources for researching their stories as 56% say social media is important for reporting and producing the stories they wrote. However, with 84% most journalists use information delivered via social media rather cautious as they think it is less reliable than information delivered via traditional media.

According to the research conducted by Cision and The George Washington University, for their online research all journalists are using Google, followed by 61% which are turning to Wikipedia.

Among social media 89% of journalists make use of blogs while conducting their online research, while 96% turn to corporate websites. Social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn by comparision are only slowly keeping up as two-thirds of the journalists turn to them during their online research, while only about half of them make use of the micro-blogging site Twitter.

“Mainstream media have clearly hit a tipping point in their reliance on social media for their research and reporting,” said Heidi Sullivan, Vice President of Research for Cision. “However, it’s also clear that while social media is supplementing the research done by journalists, it is not replacing editors’ and reporters’ reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism.”

When journalists turn to social media during their research they use blogs most often - Graphic by Cision

According to the research, journalists are adapting the new tools, but they do it carefully. Almost half the journalists responding to the survey expressed concerns about a lack of fact-checking or reporting-standards.

Generally, the survey shows that social media is a source alongside public relations professionals for assistance in their primary research: 44% of the journalists surveyed said they depend on PR professionals for “interviews and access to sources and experts”, 17% even said that PR professionals were important for their “perspective, information in context, and background information”.

Results of the research are based on 371 responses conducted in autumn 2009 by Cision and director Don Bates of The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations. More than 47% of the questioned journalists had more than 20 years’ experience.

Recession proof. Many businesses are finding PR more cost-effective than advertising

By ALIA MCMULLEN, Financial Post; Canwest News ServiceFebruary 6, 2010
Bruce MacLellan was determined to become a major player in the public relations industry when he started Environics Communications Inc. with just 3.5 employees in 1994.

Now with more than 100 employees and 15 consecutive years of profit growth - even through the recession - Environics Communications is among the top players in a rapidly expanding industry.

“Overall there is a trend toward increased spending on public relations,” MacLellan says in an interview at his Toronto office.

He says the industry is almost “recession-proof” in the sense public relations agencies are experts at delivering both good and bad news, the latter being heightened at times of economic hardship. But the industry has much more going for it than simply being the bearer of bad news.

Businesses, particularly those that are small or operating with tight budgets, often find PR to be more cost-effective than traditional advertising and find it particularly suited to taking advantage of increasingly popular social media outlets, such as blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The ability of PR agencies to adapt to this changing environment has helped them continue to grow at a time when spending on traditional forms of advertising in print and broadcast has declined.

Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a leading private-equity firm that releases an annual report on the U.S. communications industry, said there was a major shift in spending patterns in 2008 with advertising spending becoming the smallest of the four major sectors tracked for the first time since records began in 1986.

Andrew Patricio, co-owner and head trainer at BizLaunch, a free training service for small businesses, says small businesses in particular are turning to PR because media exposure is more effective than advertising at building a brand and credibility.

“We’re a big small business and we’ve always used PR because you get much more value for your dollar,” Patricio says. “PR is really becoming quite mainstream for small businesses. Not only are we trying to get into the local media or national media, but we’re also trying to get on to important blogs or important websites.”

While many businesses have begun to engage in social media on their own, it has not been at the expense of PR. Amanda Sutton, who runs her own agency, Catalyst Communications Choreography out of Barrie, Ont., says businesses have turned to PR to take a strategic approach to these new online audiences.

“More and more people are learning to harness free online tools, but when they want to learn what to say, they are thinking about PR,” she says. “PR companies have the opportunity to make themselves more relevant and take hold of this medium before it is ’siloed’ into a marketing and sales role.”

While demand for public relations services is growing, MacLellan at Environics says it takes more than just being present in an expanding market to be successful.

“Success in business comes from having the right strategy and the discipline to follow it,” he says. “From our first day, our singular objective has been exceptional customer service. And now the proof is there; if you focus on that, your other business objectives will take care of themselves, namely revenue.”

While customer service has played a central role, other strategies have also generated success. A key decision at the company’s conception was to link the public relations agency with research and consultancy firm Environics Research Group, which provided it with startup capital, resources and a respected brand name.

Another strategy has been to stay ahead of the game. In 1995, Environics Communications became the first Canadian-owned public relations agency to open a U.S. office, a move MacLellan says was critical to improving competitiveness. Then, in 2008, the company was proud to become the first carbon-neutral public relations agency in North America.

MacLellan says he also believes in establishing healthy workplace practices, including recognizing the importance of staff spending time with their families.

“Your people are your business,” he says, noting that the retention of good staff strengthens client services and relationships and also helps maintain and build skills.

To do this, Environics Communications offers more than annual bonuses. There are annual company outings to concerts such as Coldplay, company retreats (last year’s was in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and paid overseas vacations for long service — rewards that include every staff member from the receptionist to senior management.

MacLellan also encourages regular training in anything from communications to pottery.

All this has resulted in Environics Communications having one of the highest staff retention rates in the country.
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

The Harvard Business School teaches future executives the gold standard in brand crisis management. The model dictates that a company should communicate clearly with the public about a crisis, cooperate with government officials, swiftly begin its own investigation of a problem and, if necessary, quickly institute a product recall.

Certain lots of products that included Motrin, Rolaids, St. Joseph Aspirin and Tylenol were recalled on Friday by McNeil.

The template is based on Johnson & Johnson’s conduct in 1982, when several people died after taking tainted Tylenol pills. The company’s reaction to the crisis is widely regarded as exemplary.

But last week, Johnson & Johnson appeared to abandon its own template, stunning a few business school professors. Its conduct also drew harsh criticism from federal officials.

On Friday, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson, announced the recall of several hundred batches of popular over-the-counter medicines, including Benadryl, Motrin, Rolaids, Simply Sleep, St. Joseph Aspirin and Tylenol.

According to a federal inspection report, the response was anything but swift. The recall came 20 months after McNeil first began receiving consumer complaints about moldy-smelling bottles of Tylenol Arthritis Relief caplets, according to a warning letter sent by the Food and Drug Administration to the company on Friday. Since then, a few people have also reported temporary digestive problems like nausea, vomiting and stomach pain, the agency said.

The McNeil unit of Johnson & Johnson had recalled some batches of the arthritis drug at the end of 2009. But the company did not conduct a timely, comprehensive investigation, did not quickly identify the source of the problem, and did not notify authorities in a timely fashion, prolonging consumer exposure to the products, the warning letter said.

Analysts said the company’s seemingly slow response appeared out of character for one of the most trusted corporate brands in America, the maker of beloved household products like Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and Band-Aids.

And the recall, they said, had the potential to encourage consumers, who may have perceived name-brand medicines as being a higher quality worth their premium prices, to switch to less expensive drugstore brands.

“The F.D.A. comments on Friday were devastating because they make the company seem to be complacent and sloppy,” said Timothy Calkins, a clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Deborah M. Autor, the director of the Office of Compliance at the F.D.A.’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said on a conference call with journalists on Friday that the company should have acted faster.

“When something smells bad literally or figuratively,” Ms. Autor said, “companies must aggressively investigate and take all necessary actions to solve the problem.”

In response to a query from a reporter on Sunday, a spokeswoman for McNeil said that the company was working with the F.D.A. to resolve the agency’s concerns.

“We’re conscious of the fact that people expect more of us,” the spokeswoman, Bonnie Jacobs, wrote in an e-mail message. “McNeil Consumer Healthcare has applied broad criteria to identify and remove all product lots that it believes may have the potential to be affected, even if they have not been the subject of consumer complaints.”

In a statement on Friday, McNeil said the breakdown of a chemical used to treat wood pallets that transport and store product packaging was the source of the moldy smell in some products.

The company has set up a Web site, McNeilProductRecall.com, which provides the list of recalled batches, also known as lots. Consumers can also call 888-222-6036 to ask about a refund or replacement of recalled products.

Separately on Friday, the Justice Department also filed charges against Johnson & Johnson in federal court in Massachusetts, accusing the company of paying kickbacks to a nursing home pharmacy to promote several of its prescription drugs, including the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, to elderly patients. The company said on Friday that its conduct had been legal and appropriate. The company was reviewing the government’s complaint and intends to respond in court, a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Calkins said the company faces even more public scrutiny with both problems coming out on the same day.

“Now you have two stories that people are connecting,” Mr. Calkins said. “It is a bit of a compound fracture.”

He and other analysts speculated that company managers might have underestimated the extent of the chemical contamination problem or might have underestimated the public relations issue that could ensue.

This is not the first time a multinational corporation appears to have underreacted to a limited product problem that turned into a big public relations headache, said Stephen A. Greyser, a professor emeritus of marketing at the Harvard Business School. Coca-Cola, he said, was slow to respond to reports in 1999 that several hundred people in Western Europe had become sick after drinking Coke.

Mr. Greyser said he was puzzled by Johnson & Johnson’s corporate conduct in this instance.

The F.D.A.’s charges of bad behavior have not yet been proved, he said, but they were serious enough that the company should be more forthright about what its own investigations showed.

“This is an instance where behavior is more important than communications,” said Mr. Greyser, who wrote Harvard’s original case study on Tylenol in 1982. “Communications and good public relations can be very helpful, but it can’t overcome bad behavior.”

In a climate in which Americans have come to expect perfection in consumer goods, companies are better off overreacting than underreacting when product problems arise, said Michael Braun, an assistant professor of marketing at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.

Such an extreme measure as Johnson & Johnson’s nationwide recall of Tylenol in 1982 may not have been warranted for safety reasons, he said, but it reflected well on the company.

“These kinds of actions have tremendous public relations value and that can protect a brand because it engenders trust,” he said. “They probably haven’t done that in this case.”

Johnson & Johnson’s conduct is all the more out of step, analysts said, because the drug maker had been one of the first in the pharmaceutical industry to set up its own blog, jnjbtw.com.

In 2008, for example, in an act of transparent crisis management, the blog apologized to readers for a Motrin ad that had insulted some mothers and explained that the company had pulled the ad campaign in response.

But, as of Sunday at 6 p.m., on the issue of the current recall, the blog so far has had no comment from the company. (On Monday, the Johnson & Johnson blog added a posting on the recall, referring readers to the McNeil Web site and the statement that McNeil had released.)

According to data from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), a private-equity firm, spending on public relations in America grew by more than 4% in 2008 and nearly 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion. That is remarkable when compared with other forms of marketing. Spending on advertising contracted by nearly 3% in 2008 and by 8% in the past year. PR’s position looks even rosier when word-of-mouth marketing, which includes services that PR firms often manage, such as outreach to bloggers, is included. Spending on such things increased by more than 10% in 2009.

Not all PR firms did as well as IPREX, a global consortium whose revenues increased by 14% last year. Many had to shed jobs, and some estimates show the industry’s overall revenues declining, although not nearly as sharply as those of most of the businesses it serves. According to a survey by StevensGouldPincus, a consulting firm for the communications industry, nearly 64% of participating firms saw revenues slide in 2009 and only 23% saw revenues increase, perhaps because businesses put their faith only in the biggest and most established firms.

PR has done well in part because it is often cheaper than mass advertising campaigns. Its impact, in the form of favourable coverage in the media or online, can also be more easily measured. Moreover, PR firms are beginning to encroach on territory that used to be the domain of advertising firms, a sign of their increasing clout. They used chiefly to pitch story ideas to media outlets and try to get their clients mentioned in newspapers. Now they also dream up and orchestrate live events, web launches and the like. “When you look at advertising versus public relations, it’s not going to be those clearly defined silos,” says Christopher Graves, the boss of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. “It may be indistinguishable at some point where one ends and the other begins.”

PR has also benefited from the changing media landscape. The withering of many traditional media outlets has left fewer journalists from fewer firms covering business. That makes PR doubly important, both for attracting journalists’ attention, and for helping firms bypass old routes altogether and disseminate news by posting press releases on their websites, for example.

The rise of the internet and social media has given PR a big boost. Many big firms have a presence on social-networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, overseen by PR staff. PR firms are increasingly called on to track what consumers are saying about their clients online and to respond directly to any negative commentary. When two employees of Domino’s, a pizza chain, uploaded a video of themselves apparently sticking ingredients for dishes they were preparing up their noses, the firm responded by posting a video of its own online, of a senior executive apologising for the incident.

That sort of content is proliferating. A PR firm called Ketchum helped IBM start a blog about sustainability, complete with posts written by the technology firm’s executives. It also created cartoons on the subject that it uploaded to YouTube. Edelman recently worked with eBay on the launch of a web-only magazine, “The Inside Source”, which provides articles on shopping and tells readers what is selling well on the online retail giant’s website.

VSS forecasts that spending on PR in America will surpass $8 billion by 2013, with much of the growth coming from online projects such as these. According to Miles Nadal, chief executive of MDC Partners, a media holding company, investment in digital PR accelerated during the recession “and will go forward in perpetuity” because clients became more focused on measuring the impact of their efforts. The internet offers various yardsticks, from traffic to cheerleading websites to numbers of Facebook fans, whereas the number of people who see a conventional advertisement is much harder to gauge.

Perhaps the best indication of PR’s growing importance is the attention it is attracting from regulators. They are worried that PR firms do not make it clear enough that they are behind much seemingly independent commentary on blogs and social networks. In October America’s Federal Trade Commission published new guidelines for bloggers, requiring them to disclose whether they had been paid by companies or received free merchandise. Further regulation is likely. But that will not hamper PR’s growth, says Jim Rutherfurd of VSS. After all, companies that fall foul of the rules will need the help of a PR firm.

After meeting with a number of clients of the past month and discussing goals and strategies for 2010—I began organizing my thoughts into a list of what I think we can expect to see from marketing, PR, social media, and technology in 2010:

1. 2009 was the year that social media “experts” infiltrated the masses. Everyone with a Twitter account and Facebook profile was deeming themselves an expert. In 2010, the real enthusiasts and savvy folks will emerge and the snake oil salesmen will fade.

2. The press release continues its evolution. I do not believe the press release will die in 2010—however it is undergoing a transformation. Think Optimus Prime.  Organizations will always need tools to disseminate their news and adhere to disclosure rules—however never before have we had so many different options. Linking to content such as online video, blogs, social media will make the press release smarter and also improve your company’s “searchability.”

3. While not the first person to think this—I do strongly believe that Twitter will either trial an ad-based model or perhaps introduce a professional fee-based option in order to generate revenues.

4. Marketing budgets will start to shed their cobwebs. We are seeing an uptick in spending and hopefully this continues in 2010. Particularly organizations that in the past shied away from social media will begin to embrace it. Why? Because their customers are already socially plugged-in and companies need to re-think how they connect and communicate with them.

5. Social networks drive in-the-flesh networking.  Events, Meetups, and Tweetups will only continue to grow. Social media has helped to expand our brands and reach new markets and groups of people—however in 2010, I believe more and more folks will be getting together and networking in person leveraging the relationships they made via social media.

6. Just as cash is king so will content (continue to) reign in 2010. Organizations and executives who remain guarded and not willing to share opinions and thoughts via blogs, comments, and tweets will be jettisoned by their competitors who take advantage of creating content and engaging with their audience. That said, it’s not only about content, but how you market it.

7. With the increase in content creation—so will be the need to optimize that content. Your next order can be one Google, Yahoo or Bing search away, assuming you are making your content Internet-friendly via an integrated SEO and SEM strategy.

8. 2009 was economically challenging for the entire planet; many industries saw their customer bases retrench.  Those that focus on customer service, build relationships and deliver value are more likely to retain their base and grow. Implement programs to over service your customers in 2010. Those that have an optimal experience working with you are more likely to refer and reward you other business.

9. Social media invasion continues. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other platforms are making the world smaller. How you present yourself in the digital world can have personal and professional implications. Use them wisely and think twice before you upload those vacation photos to Flickr.

10. PR professionals who think in terms of press releases, media lists, and “spray and pray” email blasts will become extinct. The successful PR professionals of 2010 and beyond will think like CMOs and use a broad range of tools to deliver their message via targeted campaigns.

You’ve shown the interns where the cafeteria and bathrooms are. They have their employee badges prominently displayed and a copy of your policies and procedures tucked under their arms. Now what do you do with them?

Across the country each year, college students will break away from their campuses for meaningful “real world” experiences. You certainly don’t want to dampen their enthusiasm nor simply turn them loose within your company.

So, just how do you channel your intern’s excitement for this “real” job into an experience that is:

1. valuable for your company,
2. meaningful for the student, AND
3. doesn’t take up 90 percent of your work day?

As a major academic medical center situated on one of the nation’s largest student campuses, The Ohio State University Medical Center may be the “Internship Capital” of the United States. We have 50,000+ students to choose from. College interns work in all of our research, education and patient care areas and in support-service areas such as Communications and Marketing.

(Read what an Ohio State Medical Center intern looks for in an internship.)

Teaching, mentoring and helping young people establish their careers is a part of our mission. Ask our administrators, faculty and staff about their work with students and the vast majority would tell you it’s enjoyable, rewarding and one of the reasons they chose to work at Ohio State.

Within our Communications and Marketing Department, here are some of the things we’ve discovered to be beneficial when helping college students take their first career steps:

1. Hire well. Make your recruitment, interviewing, hiring and orientation processes as professional for interns as it is for other employees. Select a student who brings interests and skills to your workplace that are compatible with the job.

2. Connect. We usually try to link a student to one or two employees or a smaller group within our larger department. This helps students bond and provides the opportunity for a mentoring situation. Students can focus on one area and learn more about it. Some students stay with an original group. Others may move on for different learning experiences.

We also encourage interns to meet people at all levels of the organization. Interns often go along to meetings or on media interviews to find out more about the organization and its leadership, for example.

3. Grow. We look for students who can work with us for one year or longer. This lessens the pressure to rush students into the worksite. By keeping fewer students longer, the students can learn more and contribute more to our medical center.

4. Varied activities. We try to make sure our interns get to participate in several different activities—town meetings, media events, publications, Web projects, research symposia, holiday celebrations, safety initiatives and development projects.

We also try to ensure the interns are working “alongside” rather than “for” other staff. In other words, we don’t dump the unwanted projects on the interns. If we have to open 50,000 boxes that hold a light-up giveaway or pass out 13,000 beach towels, everyone helps. (We’ve done both of these.)

5. Make it fun. Handing out T-shirts, taking part in community challenges and volunteering for community outreach days can all be very enjoyable events. Keep gripes and office gossip away from the students.

6. Responsibility. In addition to helping, our interns typically have a project or two they are responsible for. This might be regular postings of signs at one of our hospital buildings, keeping the intranet calendar up to date or writing a monthly story on benefits in our newsletter.

Ownership of a project allows students to learn about project management from creating schedules to following deadlines and is a source of pride for the students. It also looks good on a resume.

7. Think career. We encourage students to keep a list of what they’ve worked on and samples of their work. If a student writes an article for our newsletter, we try to post it on our intranet and also use it for a news release. This gives the student several pieces to put in a professional portfolio.

If you have a photographer at an event, take the student’s picture for inclusion in a portfolio or at least to send to Mom and Dad. Write a blanket letter of recommendation when the student begins looking for permanent work. Help the student network by making a call or sending an e-mail to help find a graduate assistantship or an entry-level job in your company or elsewhere.

8. Food. Whenever you have an event, send the leftover food home with the students. We’ve never had a student turn down an extra pizza or a few cans of soda. Well-fed students are usually happy workers.

Lori Smith is a resource planning analyst and supervises interns at The Ohio State University Medical Center’s Department of Communications and Marketing. Ginny Halloran is an editor at Ohio State’s Medical Center.