PR Means Engaging, Especially Internally
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.
