PR: Less Elitist Than Ever

An excerpt from the bestseller “The Global PR Revolution”

Regarding social media, a PR professional must be everywhere and on top of everything. Public relations was never an elitist industry; today, it is less so than ever. A tiny portion of PR is designed to serve corporations’ CEOs and senior management. If you work with grocery products, mass consumer goods such as consumer electronics, or other types of goods that various groups of people use, you have to use their language to communicate effectively. That is primarily linked with the individual social experience of a PR professional, which is a necessity.

Political marketing and PR could be described as elitist to some extent,

Again, you have to express and verbalize your messages in the language of people not part of this elite. Messages such as “America First” or “Make America Great Again” tickle the elite and the common folk. PR is not an elitist industry. Instead, it is an industry for the people it is supposed to reach. If PR experts need to get a working-class demographic, they must speak their language and know how to talk to them effectively.

This means that we, the PR people, should be able to explain the same thing to various audiences in ways that they understand — whether it’s the president of the United States or someone fixing cars in their garage in the Bronx.

Yet, at the same time, language changes so much and quickly — especially in English — that there is a barely noticeable difference between elitist and conversational language. The public landscape is dominated by the language of online communication and social media in particular. Elitism is the last prominent feature in social media because such platforms are for mass consumption. However, social media does provide an opportunity to create certain societies that might not necessarily stand out but are valued for their qualities (i.e., elitist members). There is some criticism that many people worldwide might be unable to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the social media revolution because of insufficient comprehension and underdeveloped critical thinking skills. Yet, regarding our industry, that might not be very relevant, given that the average citizen of Tucson, Arizona, for example, does not need PR services. And if such a person does happen to need PR services, thanks to social media, he can now handle it on his own. The owner of a small shop in Tucson doesn’t require media reporters at his door

— he needs to tell his story on social media and attract the people in the neighborhood.

He can do that on his own, or some local journalist can do that for him for a small amount of money, or his teenage kid can do it for free. Solving a PR crisis, managing reputation, or building and developing a corporate image, for example, when a merger between companies, especially in the financial sector, is another story. These are activities that need to be done proactively and by a professional.

Concerning PR, everybody benefits from social media platforms — from the large corporations to the “little people.”

Along with everything else, social media has given a gigantic boost to business, something that has never been seen before. That person with the small store in Tucson would have never even thought of being able to promote his business in a medium of his own. Instead, he would have been saving money to run an ad in the local newspaper or on local radio, or he

would have been trying to befriend some local journalist and chug a couple

of tequila shots with him in the bar to get him to write something about his business. Now, everyone has the terrific opportunity to promote their business on social media and develop, boost, and grow it with minimum funds, perhaps even without any funds. All it takes to make it at this basic business level is perseverance, persistence, tenacity, and ambition. This is especially true of online businesses and online stores, which have turned the notion of doing business upside down.

Social media is taking over online trade, as well.

There are already online stores with no specific websites that sell products solely on social media — the so-called Facebook stores. However, players like eBay, Amazon, and Alibaba have genuinely transformed the world from a business standpoint. Even though it started much earlier, most of this transformation of social media and the social web occurred in 2007–2008.

What has changed since then is that social media has completely conquered the world. Even though Twitter and Facebook already existed in 2008, Facebook had “only” 100 million users. Now, it has over 2 billion, plus a great variety of new functions and options. Additionally, visuals and imagery are increasing, becoming more critical than ever in communication. Live communication has also become an invaluable option for social media.

ABUSING TT

Can PR abuse or misuse the opportunities offered by the world of total transparency?

Sure it can!

PR companies still succumb to their clients’ demands to slander their competitors or somebody else. The notion of “black PR” hasn’t died yet. It is the holy grail for unethical and dishonest people who would do all their power to harm their competitors and clear the market for themselves or their clients. Conversely, they can try to whitewash the reputation of a dishonest company, which is another form of manipulation.

This is why there are codes of ethics and guidelines for good practice,

Fair competition and transparency are increasingly gaining traction in our industry and media, especially concerning media ownership. What ICCO and other global organizations have been tirelessly working toward is to try to guarantee that PR companies among their members strictly comply with all codes of conduct and do not misuse the power given by social media platforms. There have been codes of ethics all around the globe for a while now — perhaps for the past twenty or thirty years.

They are particularly crucial now since PR experts need to be more aware than ever that they have a powerful weapon.

Some twenty years ago, as we were adopting the ethics standards at my company, M3 Communications Group, Inc., I explained to my colleagues the tremendous responsibility we bear, using the “potato” example:

You go to the marketplace and get yourself a sack of potatoes.

You go home and discover that most potatoes you’ve bought are rotten. So you go back to the marketplace, start shouting at the seller, and they either replace the rotten potatoes with good ones or give you your money back. Whatever the outcome, the whole scandal stays between you and the seller. It should be like that in any case with any service and any seller. Nowadays, in the PR business, the moment we decide to try to fool somebody, it usually blows up in our faces. In the old days before social media, we would have fooled the (traditional) media, who would, in turn, delude the readers/buyers/ customers — the general public. The situation is much more dangerous because we can fool everybody without going through traditional media.

Every PR expert must be perfectly aware of their enormous responsibility.

This is one aspect of total transparency. There is a risk that social media can be turned into a loose cannon. A profile or a page on some social media platform can be used against opponents, critics, or anybody you dislike in a way that has nothing to do with the ethical use of media. Not to mention that such a practice is usually done through fake profiles. The world of TT does create opportunities for abuse and unfair play. Still, on the other hand, since everything is public and because of the interactivity of social media, thousands of different opinions are also allowed. In any case, those who have been targeted or otherwise affected by malicious activity have the opportunity to react — which is a significant part of our industry, public relations. This reaction needs to be very well-calibrated and very professional. Very often, the reaction is either inadequate or botched.

The old joke about a guy who invited a friend over to lunch demonstrates the danger of failing to react appropriately.

The next day, he called his friend and asked, “John, did you take a gold teaspoon from our house because we’re missing one?” “No, Bill, I didn’t take anything!” “John, it must have been you; nobody else has been here since yesterday. Nobody else could’ve taken it!” “No, I didn’t take it!” Two weeks later, John calls back and asks, “Bill, what happened with that golden teaspoon you were missing?” “Ah, we found it. But you know, the bad feeling somehow remained . . .”

Ill-wishers have attacked every single public figure,

including people who specialize in PR and know how to manipulate public opinion professionally. When you or your company are slandered or targeted by a “black PR” campaign, every response is very uncertain because it’s impossible to know whether your response will ever reach the same number of people as the original attack.

This is why, when we work with big companies, our primary recommendation is to always, always, always be highly proactive, even hyperactive, with news about the company so that whenever somebody decides to libel you, your news stories will still be dominant.

That way, all of the corporation’s positive achievements can stay in front of the general public, so even if someone spills some dirt, it will dissolve in that sea of positive stories. In particular, being permanently proactive on social media is one of the most essential things the PR industry must always do in the current revolution. Because we handle media on our own now, we will be held accountable for using this tremendous opportunity to share a vast number of news stories, which should be both intelligently written and engaging. If we fail to do so, we will have only ourselves to blame for any missed opportunities — and our clients will blame us, too.

Nevertheless, between ethics and manipulation,

there is no question as to which trend will prevail. It is impossible for the rise of ethics not to emerge triumphant eventually. Even at the present moment, in my view, global manipulation attempts make up no more than 15–20 percent of the entire ocean of communication. People are increasingly cautious and selective concerning the information they share and how they read, which is also a prerequisite for the ultimate triumph of ethics. Moreover, consumer power is increasing with every minute. It is a matter of the development of Homo sapiens and how we harmonize ourselves with social media — ethics is destined to prevail. In a world where consumers have the power, there is no way for an immoral and unethical business to stay operational for long. Going back to the Bell Pottinger case,

everything becomes public knowledge sooner or later,

and nowadays, that’s increasingly happening sooner rather than later. Here is one golden rule for the world of total transparency: whatever happens and whatever you might do, there is no way it won’t become public one day. My categorical forecast is that as transparency takes off and social media becomes ever more dominant as the primary means of communication in the PR industry and everywhere else,

PR experts must become more professional and attentive and increasingly adhere to robust ethical norms.

The book is available on Amazon.com and BeharBooks.com.