Kim Leslie’s PR Blog

The PR practitioner’s role in actively advocating and implementing successful internal/employee communication now extends to social media. The importance of this role is evidenced by social media mishaps which turned into full-blown crises. In other, but fewer cases, mistakes were corrected because organizations listened to and engaged conversations on social media. Media mishaps gone wrong include the Dominos YouTube videos, the Amazon.com gay and lesbian book sales ranking disappearance, and IBM’s silence to internal and external stakeholders a week after a VP of the company was arrested.

In addition, the Metro Bank name-change crisis tells of similar internal/employee communication problems. The crisis began as consumers posted stories about the complications they had experienced due to the bank’s name change. Metro Bank employees decided to join the conversation, and fueled the crisis. Employees discussed the disorganization and confusion within Metro Bank, all the way up to the Regional Presidents of the Bank. One employee even used profanity toward consumers and called them bad customers. If Metro Bank’s PR practitioner(s) had implemented a crisis communication plan for employees, many of the negative effects of the crisis could have been eliminated (the company also should have had a better crisis communication plan for external stakeholders, especially consumers). PR practitioners should have educated employees about social media use and its consequences for the company. Most importantly, PR practitioners and company executives should have focused on engaging employees. The actively disengaged employees who responded to consumers’ blog posts did not feel loyalty to or have a deep connection with the company. Thus, PR should mean engaging not only external stakeholders, but internal ones as well.

PR practitioners should have an active role in employee/internal communication within organizations. Employees should be viewed by organizations as their most important stakeholder group because employees determine whether an organization will be successful or not. Practitioners should encourage organizations to view employees this way and communicate with employees in a way that reflects this view. Engaged employees have a special connection with the organization that causes them to act in the best interest of the company, ultimately benefitting the company (often made possible by PR practitioners). In addition, engaged employees have an increased level of job satisfaction, lead to more profitability for the company, and lower turnover rates and operating costs. Not only do engaged employees provide these benefits to the company, they are also loyal to the company and stay employed there, perform well, encourage others to perform better, and serve as ambassadors that recommend the employer to others and build a positive image of the employer within the community.

PR practitioners can create programs that increase the number of engaged employees in an organization. To do this, practitioners must build trust with employees and encourage transparent internal communication. If internal communication is transparent, communication with external stakeholders will also be transparent, and the organization will be viewed as credible. Practitioners must ensure that internal communication is frequent, authentic, and builds quality relationships with employees. Practitioners already work to build these types of relationships with consumers and other external stakeholders, and are experts on how to engage various stakeholders.

If employee/internal communication and engaged employees are beneficial to organizations in so many ways, why are some organizations not turning to PR practitioners who can offer invaluable expertise?

The Brita Products Company exercises CSR in many areas, including its eco-conscious partnership with Nalgene to reduce bottled water waste. The partnership, called Filter For Good, urges consumers to fill reusable Nalgene water bottles with water filtered through Brita filters. The companies ask consumers to make a pledge to use reusable water bottles at least a few days a week to reduce the number of water bottles in landfills.

Brita’s CSR aligns with its “About Us” section on the company’s website. Brita “prides itself in being a good corporate citizen,” and uses the Filter For Good campaign and others like it to demonstrate that their company cares about the environment. Of course, these are PR tactics used to implement CSR, but this is where CSR begins for Brita, not where it ends. The Filter For Good campaign goes beyond the company’s statement that it cares about the environment. Filter For Good empowers consumers to adopt eco-friendly habits, instead of simply telling consumers how the company helps the environment. For example, Filter For Good partnered with the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and eliminated the need for the 50,000 disposable water bottles the Festival gave to attendees in 2008. Attendees were given complimentary Nalgene bottles and filled them with filtered Brita water located throughout the Festival. Not only did this reduce waste at the Festival, it encouraged consumers to continue to reduce bottled water waste in the future.

Brita’s CSR strengthens relationships with key stakeholders such as consumers, employees, and shareholders. Filter For Good helps to ensure that key stakeholders feel that their contributions (monetary or otherwise) to the company are making an impact in the world and making a difference. In addition, the Filter For Good partnership with the Sundance Film Festival exhibits Brita’s desire to place environmental issues and interests before its own self-interests. This is exemplified by the free filtered water Brita provided and the free water bottles provided by Nalgene. Donating their products in this way for environmental interests impacted consumers. Through the Filter For Good CSR campaign, Brita has demonstrated that others truly benefit from the company’s existence (the point of CSR).

Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, has become an increasingly popular topic for PR professionals and PR firms. Despite CSR’s rising popularity, PR practitioners must proceed with caution when implementing CSR. PR firms and practitioners must ensure that their own companies and values meet the ethical standards of CSR. If PR firms and practitioners are not practicing CSR along with values-driven PR, then how can they expect to be credible sources in CSR implementation for other companies? PR practitioners must take on the role of practicing CSR themselves before they can counsel companies on corporate ethics.  They must go beyond teaching others about CSR and work to implement and advocate for ethical business practices for themselves and other PR practitioners and firms.

PR practitioners must also remember that their role in CSR is not to use it as a tool, but to use PR as a tool for CSR implementation. Unfortunately, many continue to view PR as just image building and publicity. Due to this, CSR must not become a tool used for publicity as part of a PR program for a company. Instead, CSR must stand apart from PR and become something that is embedded in a company’s core focus and values.

In addition, CSR cannot be used simply as PR to strengthen relationships with key stakeholders. As a result of a company proving through CSR that it seeks to promote and achieve more than its own self-interests, CSR should strengthen relationships with key stakeholders. Moreover, effective PR for a company should be a product of CSR implementation.

PR and CSR both target stakeholders such as employees, shareholders, and customers. Once a company has implemented CSR into its core values and mission, the company can use PR to inform key stakeholders of this. CSR means putting social and other global issues before a company’s self-interest. Thus, CSR implementation should begin before PR about CSR. Otherwise, companies and practitioners are missing the point of CSR: others should benefit from the existence of a company.

Many PR practitioners could learn a lot from implementing CSR themselves (and gain some credibility too).

Ethical PR begins with transparency, trust, and honesty. The widespread use of social media has raised new questions about PR ethics, specifically disclosure. Some PR practitioners have engaged in astroturfing, or using social media (such as blogs) to create grassroots support for their client, product, etc. Countless examples include the Edleman/Walmart disaster, where Edleman employees created blogs or “flogs” called Working Families for Wal-Mart. These blogs promoted Wal-Mart and seemed to show grassroots support for the company. Once Edleman disclosed that their employees had created the blogs, the ethics of this practice were immediately questioned.

Edleman responded to the controversy with a plan to evaluate and improve its company and employee ethics. The company asked for feedback online, and created a plan for ensuring ethical behavior and transparency in the new social media industry. The Edleman/Walmart fiasco caused PR practitioners to reevaluate their ethical standards online. The cry for transparency and honesty increased, and bloggers called for the creation of a code of ethics specifically for blogging. In addition, the ethical issue of disclosure was, and continues to be debated. People called for the writers of the Walmart blogs to disclose their true identities. Normal people, not just those in the PR industry, wanted the Edleman employees to disclose their identities and uphold ethical standards.

My answer to “Do people care about disclosure?” Yes, they do. Should they be regulating practitioners on blogs and other forms of social media? Is it the public’s responsibility to insist on disclosure, transparency, trust, and honesty when astroturfing practitioners violate codes of ethics? These, and other ethics questions concerning PR will continue to be raised as the use of social media increases.

As evidenced by endless lists of examples of PR faux pas due to inattention to cross-cultural communication, it is essential for PR practitioners to know how to communicate successfully with other cultures. One example of differences in cultural attributes (Guth & Marsh) is the Pepsodent PR Campaign in South Asia. The campaign used the slogan, “You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.” Unfortunately, the natives chew betel nuts to blacken their teeth, and black teeth are considered more attractive than white teeth. This cultural difference corresponds with the cultural attribute of attitudes about colors, numbers, and symbols (Guth & Marsh). White-colored teeth are ideal in U.S. culture, while black-colored teeth are ideal in parts of South Asia. The unofficial language, or nonverbal language, of colors in different cultures often conveys more than words.

If Pepsodent had taken the time to gain knowledge about the culture in South Asia, the first step to cross-cultural awareness communication, Pepsodent could have avoided the unsuccessful campaign (and the embarrassment).  On its website, Pepsodent prides itself on having provided oral care to Indonesia for over 30 years. Yet, the company did not take the time initially to research cultural attributes for that area.  The company did learn from its embarrassing campaign, as evidenced by its success as the leading toothpaste brand in most Asian countries.

Pepsodent’s PR blunder emphasizes the need for practitioners to research, research, research, especially before launching a campaign in another country.

Social media are effective for informing people during a crisis, which is another reason why organizations should pay attention to them. In a case study of Scott Monty’s response to a Ford Motor Company social media crisis, Monty used Twitter to communicate with key stakeholders during the crisis. The entire crisis ended as a simple misunderstanding and was remedied in less than 24 hours because of Monty’s monitoring and use of social media. Monty’s most effective strategy was to ask his followers to re-tweet his posts, which spread accurate news about the crisis. Through this, Monty was able to reach an average of 747 additional people for each re-tweet posted. This case study, and other social media responses like it, demonstrate that organizations must use social media to inform people during a crisis. Otherwise, the damage caused by the crisis will be much more severe and the organization will be criticized later for its oversight of social media.

Another example of using social media for crisis communication is the American Red Cross. The Red Cross uses social media during a crisis to inform key stakeholders, the media, and the public of new developments. Web 2.0 technologies are used by the Red Cross to inform people during a crisis, such as during the California Wildfires of 2007. Sites like Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Utterz are used by the Red Cross on its online newsroom website. In addition, the Red Cross has its own Twitter account, but this should not be surprising. A recent study found that social media are far more effective at informing and connecting people during emergencies than the mass media and official government channels. Thus, the Red Cross has been commended for its use of social media technologies to inform people during a crisis. Other organizations should seek to emulate the Red Cross because social media has become an integral part of crisis communication.

“Crisis communication,” is an organization’s response to a crisis, or something that affects and threatens that organization’s core values. Social media can help or hinder an organization before, during, and after a crisis. Social media can start and fuel a crisis, or they can be used to listen to the conversation about an organization and end a crisis before it begins. Listening, one of “The 10 Golden Rules of Social Media,” is something proactive an organization can do to prevent a crisis. During a crisis, organizations need to listen and engage in conversations in order to directly influence messages about the organization. This can quickly be implemented to lessen the damage caused by a crisis.

Any organization using social media tools will encounter a crisis that is started or fueled by social media. The first step in handling a social media crisis is to plan, and plan now. Online communication, especially social media, should not be ignored before a crisis. Social media should also not be ignored during a crisis, as organizations should listen to, and pay attention to, the conversations occurring through social media. Often, organizations can get an early “heads up” before a crisis strikes and avoid a social media crisis altogether. Brian Soils states that “a majority of potential crisis are now avoidable through proactive listening, engagement, response, conversation, humbleness, and transparency.” By doing this, organizations can keep a “tropical storm from becoming a hurricane,” or keep an online dilemma from becoming a true public crisis. Not only can social media start a crisis and fuel a crisis, they can stop a crisis.

Organizations simply need to plan before crisis strikes in order to make use of this benefit of social media.