Reputation Management: A Driving Force For Action

In my opinion, any company that wishes to succeed in the long-run must work on their reputation. Bad company practices are increasingly being scrutinized by public watchdogs and netizens, and as the web continues to get more influential, the speed which bad press travels is increasing at an alarming rate. Although smaller companies can rely on fewer aspects of their business to establish their reputation, such as efficiency and quality, larger companies have to ensure that all aspect of their practices are being monitored, including those that they might be directly associated with.

These include Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which relates to how the company deals with the environment and the community around them. CSR has taken much significance in how consumers spend their money, therefore it is important for large corporation to incorporate them into their business planning and ensure the public that their social and environment conditions are well taken care of.

However, many companies experiencing significant growth period would often continue focusing on increasing their profits margin rather than channelling their resources to building their corporate image through CSR. This can be clearly seen in the many companies that has been establish due to the effects of China's recent economic growth, as they continue to exploit workers and destroy the environment to achieve their financial targets.

Such ill practices will soon be exposed and large international corporations cannot afford to make such mistakes at the risk of damaging their reputation. Apple and Google have been prime examples of how to establish corporate reputation with the former well-known for excellent customer service and the latter renowned for their generous employee benefits. I am sure such corporations will continue to come up with communications strategies to sustain and improve their reputation.

Public Relations Management in Organizations

When dwelling on the section on Adjustment and Adaptation, I can't
help but recall the growing crisis that has emerged from Toyota, the
largest automaker in the world. Up to 8 million cars has already
been recalled due to brake and acceleration defects, Toyota's fall from
grace has seen itself portrayed as a company contradicting its own
policy of safety first, quality second and volume third. Toyota's
president has already admitted that its exponential growth has
seen the company neglecting its policy and allow the defects to slip
through.

With such a turn of fortune for the automaker, this period of time
must have been a nightmare for its Public Relations department.
While their job before this incident must have been to maintain the
company's image and continue to promote its product, their top
priority now is certainly to win back consumers' trust and reduce
the damage that has been done on the company's reputation. Many
press releases has been sent, press conference held and interviews
given. Such measures are necessary but definitely not enough right
the ship, the PR campaigners must now come up with strategy that
would be able to win back the trust of the public.

Strategies to proactively manage activity

Strategy and tactic seem to imply the same meaning to me before I started reading the chapter. After doing so, I realized that strategy is a plan to achieve a specific goal while tactic are used to help us implement the strategy. This chapter dwells on the fine details of planning the strategy and I find the steps suggested to be very useful in helping us to understand it better.

I personally felt that while the chapter on engaging the media gives us a broad perspective on the scope of Public Relations, this chapter actually shows us the intricate details of the planning stage and make me realize how meticulous a PR practitioner must be from the start of the preparation to the final execution of the plan. The minor details along the way are very important in ensuring whether the plan succeeds or not.

Engaging with the Media

I think that it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that engaging with the media is an art in itself. Not only must PR practitioner be able to build relationship with the appropriate personnels, they must also be able to frame their media releases in such a way that it would not only capture the attention of journalist but also elicit positive responses from the public. On top of that, the amount of work they put in trying their best to present their releases, sourcing for the appropriate media and keep all in line with the objectives of the company, all these take up a tremendous amount of time and effort. I am sure from the readings I would not be able to truly appreciate the difficulties of the job but it has certainly helped me gain a clearer overview of it.

Although much has been said about drawing attention by engaging the media, the chapter also touched on ways to minimise media attention on bad news regarding the organization which I realised is equally as important. The media seems have a thirsting for bad news, and it is inevitable that an organisation makes mistakes now and then. Therefore it is important to choose to right timing to release a report and an example given was to release it at a time slot that has other more interesting and overwhelming news that would overshadow the release and thus reduce the negative effects that might come along with it.

Public Relations Practice

After reading the chapter on Public Relations Practice, I realised that the practices of a practitioner is heavily influenced by the values of the company which are also affected by the culture of the country. Especially when world in a multi-national company, a practitioner have to understand the company's culture and be prepared to adapt since varying cultures are significantly different from one another.

There are different sector a PR practitioner can work for, namely the not-for-profit sector, corporate sector and public sectors. The sector that interest me most is the NFP sector as it seems to offer the most challenging set of expectations to a practitioner. As the budget for NFP sector is usually small, PR practitioner are forced to rely more on their creativity to work on the limited resources that they have rather than relying on the tried and tested ways of a larger corporate sector. In doing so I would be able to try out new methods and approaches for the company, though at a higher risk of failure. The need for interpersonal skills is also important as it requires the practitioner to work with people from all areas of the sector as there are needs to manage volunteers and continually motivate them to serve the cause of the organization.

Such demands of a NFP sector would certainly provide valuable experience for a graduate and would do well to improve one's resume.

Public Relations Research

It is easy to neglect the importance of research, using excuses such as being time consuming and expensive. However, with relevant research input, the results can generate a tremendous amount of insight into the topic which we would have otherwise overlook. Hence, I totally agree with the author's view that failure due to the lack of research is unacceptable.

There are two general form of research, namely qualitative and quantitative research. As much as it is important to do research, it is equally important to choose the correct research methods. Because by doing so, PR practitioners will save precious time and money that has been put into it, and will also be able to generate feedback that would be relevant to the studies. While both methods have their pros and cons, I feel that in most cases qualitative research method would serve as a better research tool as it allows the interviewees to offer feedback and opinions that the surveyor might have overlooked. That said, quantitative research method would be able to gauge the general attitude of the public better.

One useful suggestion that I have learnt in the chapter is the three quick steps towards thinking like a public relations professional, which is
1. Understanding the problem, issue or opportunity
2. Framing the research questions
3. Designing the research activity

The example that has been given offers a systematic approach to generating relevant questions for the research. Without asking the right questions, the results gathered would be deemed useless to the findings as it would not help the PR professional understand the subject better. By applying the steps suggested, I would able to thinking more logically and pose questions which are relevant.

Public Relations Ethics

In the practitioner profile about Fiona Cassidy, she mentioned that it is important to work with people and causes that we believe in. That would be the ideal situation for any graduate, however, it is simply not the case for most people. Job opportunities would be very limited for the inexperienced graduate, and making ethical choices would almost always be dictated by the companies' management. I had a friend who was asked to work on a gay campaign but she refused to do so because of her religious beliefs and she was promptly given the sack. I believe if someone has a strong ethical conviction, they must really understand the culture and direction of the company before working for them.

When dwelling on the topic of Public Relations Ethics, my sentiments was exactly the same as the senior practitioner quoted in the chapter, 'We know exactly how to be ethical. We just need to stop talking about it and get on with it.' But as simple as that may sound, ethical and moral issues are continually being transgressed in all facets of life and PR is without exception.

However, I was rather surprised at the examples that were quoted in the book. The ethical issues mentioned were about companies not showing their identities in their online materials, which I personally felt wasn't such a big issue. I would think that cases which involve campaigns blatantly giving false information such as fake lucky draw will be more of an issue than those that were mentioned. Perhaps the author wants to demonstrate how easy it is for PR practitioner to overlook ethical issues and how easy it is for the public to be offended.