UNIT 3

CHAPTER 3
FUNCTIONS OF CORPORATE
COMMUNICATION AND
PUBLIC RELATIONS
 MEDIA RELATIONS
• Media relations involve working with media for the purpose of informing the
public of an organization’s mission, policies and practices in a positive, consistent
and credible manner.
• The goal of media relations is to maximize positive coverage in the mass media
without paying for it directly through advertising.
 IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA RELATIONS
1. It enables the organization to get its message multiplied.
2. It will lend wings to the reach of the organization as its business stories will reach the public at the
local, regional, national as well as the international levels
3. It will be the mouthpiece of your voice during the larger discussions.
4. It will enable organizational messages to reach the Government decision makers and can thus, draw
the attention of Parliamentarians/ Legislators to your cause.
5. Business personnel can showcase their expertise and derive opportunities for themselves as business
leaders.
6. It enables corporations to communicate the culture and persona of a complex organization.
7. If journalists are encouraged, they always hunt out good in-house stories and turn them to the
company's competitive advantage.
8. Positive news coverage offers higher credibility as compared to paid advertising.
9. The media offer their audiences a perspective every time they refer to the activities of an organization
and respond to the potential concerns of the general public, consumers and other stakeholders in their
operating policies.
10. The cost of coverage in media is lower in comparison to the advertising cost
11. Third party endorsement is a good idea to establish the reputation of an organization by leveraging
it in online articles called 'Top ten...‘
12. It allows the press to give business coverage so that the audiences get to know about the company's
products, services. It also helps companies in building their brand presence using media.
13. Businesses can track how many media hits your company, service or product has received in the
past to find their benchmark in order to measure their brand awareness and reputation.
14. As you implement a media relations campaign, if you have found the right target audience and have
sent home the right key messages, then you will get qualified leads as they land on your website or
call your company.
15. Businesses need to maintain long term relationships with the media professionals so that they are
able to bag advantages in the future.
16. When a company maintains good relationship with the journalist, it becomes easy to pitch them for
coverage.
17. One of the most essential aspects of getting press coverage via robust media relations campaigns is
that you are able to build more control and reinforce the brand image that you are aiming to create
through advertising and marketing.
18. Businesses should share exciting happening news from the company with the media to please their
audience.
 SOURCES OF MEDIA INFORMATION
1. Population census
2. Annual economic survey
3. India – year book
4. INFA
5. Audit bureau of circulation
6. TAM media research
7. Indian National Television Audience Measurement
8. CMIE – States of India
9. Capitaline
10. CommoditiesIndia.com
11. CRISIL INFAC
 BUILDING EFFECTIVE MEDIA RELATIONS
1. Polish your pitch
2. Find the new angle
3. Know which journalist to contact
4. Find media contacts looking for you
5. Reach out on social media
6. Send personalized, targeted emails
7. Connect on social media
8. Share all information
9. Be honest
10. Learn how to be quotable
11. Be timely
12. Be accessible
13. Offer exclusives
14. Show personality
15. Provide photos
 THE TOP 5 ‘DON’TS’ WHEN IT COMES TO
MEDIA RELATIONS
1. Don’t complain in public if a story didn’t get the spin you hoped for or if you
are misquoted. If there is an error, correct it politely.
2. Don’t add media contacts to your company newsletter (unless asked).
3. Do not befriend media contacts on Facebook. Connecting on LinkedIn is
perfectly fine, but Facebook is off limits.
4. Don’t be too aggressive with your follow up. Respect the journalist’s time and
itinerary.
5. Don’t expect that a reporter has to run your story. That attitude will get you
nowhere fast.
 PRINCIPLES OF GOOD MEDIA RELATIONS
Some Principles ofGood Media Relations are:
1. A relationship is both inevitable and necessary between an organization and the
media. The actions of the organization will determine if this relationship is good
or bad.
2. The organization should publicly speak with one voice, by designating and
preparing a Single spokesperson or multiple spokespeople with a coordinated
message.
3. The person closest to the situation should be the designated spokesperson or at
least be in close communication with the spokesperson.
4. "No comment" is never an option. Every bona fide question should be
addressed.
5. The organization should look upon reporters as allies in reaching various publics
rather than as intruders or enemies.
6. The organization should consider itself accountable to all of its various publics, internal
as well as external. This includes customers, employees/volunteers, stockholders/
donors,supporters, and the community. Further, it should view thenews media as one of
the vehicles available for communicatingwith these constituencies.
7. The organization should not expect to control the media’s agenda or their assessment of
what is newsworthy. But it can help add issues to that agenda.
8. The public/media relations office should always be "in theloop" in all newsworthy
situations, especially those with negative potential.
9. Reporters should be accommodated with professional assistance such as parking
permits, access, and a functioning media room.
10. The organization should expect that it occasionally will"take a hit" in the media. Its
response should be to accept this, try to understand it, and get over it as quickly as
possible.
11. Media skepticism and scrutiny can be more bearable when the organization interacts
with reporters in a timely manner and with openness, accuracy, and candor.
12. Media coverage is considerably more credible than advertising.The effective use of the
news media gives an organization a believable voice in the community.
 SOURCES OF EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION
FORMAL SOURCES OF EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION:
• Cell-phone
• E-mails
• Instant messaging
• Workshops/conferences
• Teleseminars and webinars fro team learning
• Exclusive case studies and articles
• Newsletters with insight into the latest trends and section news
INFORMAL SOURCES OF EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION:
• Family gathering / get together
• Picnics
• Interactive gaming
• Podcasting
• Online discussion forum
• Members-only directory
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blogging
ORGANIZING EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS
1. Be clear and concise
2. Set the tone at the top
3. Have a clear vision and goal
4. Understand your employees
5. Display passion for company
6. Use many channels
7. Notify employees first
8. Match actions with words
9. Emphasize face-to-face communication
10. Display variety in mode of employee communication
11. Adopt a new approach
12. Conduct camp for training, development and indoctrination
13. Communicate regularly
14. Measure effectiveness
15. Facilitate conversation
BENEFITS OF GOOD EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS
1. Engaged employees
2. Ensure consistency
3. Promotes 2 way feedback
4. Ensure compliance with regulatory bodies
5. Ensure common understanding of strategy and goals
6. Promotes a positive attitude towards change
7. Increases productivity
8. Improves identification
9. Increases employee satisfaction
10. Increases customer satisfaction
 STEPS IN IMPLEMENTING AN EFFECTIVE EMPLOYEE
COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAMME
1. Build a sense of community among employees so that their interactions give meaning to their
work.
2. Educate employees so they can participate in decision making.
3. Clarify how employees contribute to achieving company goals.
4. Increase employees satisfaction through information sharing.
5. Build open relationships with employees through honest communication so they trust
management.
6. Influence the communication climate by creating positive message.
7. Explain where the organization is heading and help employees make sense of the situation.
8. Improvement of media, lessen information overload, encourage feedback and manage the
rumor mill.
9. Tap into and advocate employee opinions.
10. Promote employee programs such as health / wellness, company Intranet, green initiatives
tec.
 ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IN EMPLOYEE
COMMUNICATION
Management should work at employee relations in the following ways:
1. Choose the right champion or driving force to formulate and convey company’s key message
about employee relations to all level of the company-from plant workers to senior management.
2. Create the right settings for getting across the message about employee concern.
3. Repeat efforts at employee communication again and again.
4. Listen to the employees point of view and then speak.
5. Distribute your message across multiple communication channel.
6. Remember that successful employee communication allows implementation of important
organizational goals.
7. Provide relevant and timely information to employees to motivate them to do a better job, to
advance in their positions and to further the goals of the organization itself.
8. Communicate directly with employees to create an atmosphere of respect for all employees.
9. Give employees a reason to believe that coming to work is associated with something far
grander than maximizing shareholder value.
 CRISIS COMMUNICATION
• When we refer to crisis, we refer to serious corporate crisis, which affect the
image and performance of the company or organization.
• According to Holsti, “ A crisis is a situation characterized by surprise and high
threat to important values, it has a short decision time.”
PRE-CRISIS PHASE:
1. Be prepared
2. Foster alliances
3. Develop consensus recommendations
4. Test messages
INITIAL PHASE:
5. Acknowledge the event empathy
6. Explain and inform the public, in simplest terms about the risk
3. Establish organizational / spokesperson credibility
4. Provide emergency courses of action
5. Commit to stakeholders and public to continued communication
CRISIS MAINTENANCE:
6. Help people more accurately understand their own risk
7. Provide background and encompassing information to those who need it
8. Gain understanding and support for responses and recovery plan
9. Listen to stakeholder and audience feedback and correct misinformation
10. Explain emergency recommendations
11. Empower risk / benefit decision making
RESOLUTION:
12. Improve appropriate public response in future similar emergencies through education
13. Honestly examine problems and mishaps, and then reinforce what worked in the
recovery and response effort
3. Persuade the public to support public policy and resource allocation
4. Promote the activities and capabilities of the organization
EVALUATION:
5. When the crisis is over, evaluate communication plan performance, document
lessons learned and determine specific actions to improve crisis systems or the
crisis plan.
 IMPACT OF CRISIS
1. Emotional effect: shock, terror, irritability, blame, anger etc.
2. Cognitive effect: impaired concentration, impaired decision making, disbelief, confusion etc.
3. Physical effect: fatigue, insomnia, increased physical pain etc.
4. Interpersonal effect: social withdrawal, impaired work performance, decreased satisfaction
etc.
Some of the harmful human behaviors that are known to arise during a crisis are:
• Demand for unneeded treatment
• Disorganized group behavior
• Bribery and fraud
• Reliance on special relationships
• Increased alcohol and tobacco use
• Increased multiple unexplained physical symptoms
• Unreasonable trade and travel restrictions
INITIAL PHASE:
• Threat of life and encounter with death
• Feelings of powerlessness
• Loss
• Dislocation
• Feeling responsible
• Inescapable horror
• Human malevolence
MAINTENANCE PHASE:
The maintenance phase evolves, people may experience numbness, denial,
flashbacks, grief, anger, despair, sadness and hopelessness
RESOLUTION:
Organized support starts to erode and the realities of loss, bureaucratic constraints
and permanent life changes come crashing in.
 ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN CRISIS
Some of the Don'ts of communication practices that contribute poor
public response that can be overcome with planning, coordination,
research, and training include:
• Mixed messages from multiple experts.
• Information released so late that events make the issue moot.
• Messages that are over-reassuring.
• Recommendations to the public without a reality check.
• Leaving myths, rumours, and doomsayers unchallenged or corrected.
The following principles should be followed during each phase of Crisis:
Pre-crisis Phase
• Stop trying to allay panic.
• Emphasize that there is a process in place. Define the process,
• describe the roles and responsibilities for response, and outline
• the solution.
Initial Phase
• During the initial phase, violating the following emergency risk Communication
principles can spell immediate trouble.
• Don't over-reassure.
• Acknowledge uncertainty.
• Emphasize that a process is in place to learn more
• Stop trying to allay panic.
Maintenance Phase
The following emergency risk communication principles should be incorporated in messages:
• Acknowledge fears.
• Express wishes. “I wish we knew more." "I wish our answers
• were more definitive."
• Acknowledge the shared misery.
• Give anticipatory guidance.
• At some point, be willing to address the "what if" questions for if you don’t, someone with
much less at risk regarding the response's outcome will answer them for you.
• Be a role model and ask more of people
Resolution Phase
To truly maintain trust and credibility at this point, the expressed commitments from the initial
phases must be followed through
• Be regretful, not defensive. Say "We are sorry...." or "We feel terrible that ..."
• Express wishes. Say, "I wish we all could have been spared this tragedy, incident, etc."
 GUIDELINES FOR HANDLING CRISIS
1. Take control
2. Analyze case studies
3. Respect the role of the media
When talking to the media:
• Be first
• Be right
• Be credible
• Give facts. Don't speculate.
• Repeat the facts about the event.
• Describe the data collection and investigation process.
• Describe what your organization is doing about the crisis.
• Describe what other organizations are doing.
• Explain what the public should be doing.
• Describe how to obtain more information about the situation.
4. Create a crisis team with the CEO in the lead and prepare a plan:
• An emergency risk and crisis communication plan should include the following elements:
• Signed endorsement from your director.
• Designated line and staff responsibilities for the public information teams.
• Internal information verification and clearance/approval procedures.
• Agreements on information release authorities.
• Regional and local media contact list.
• Procedures to coordinate with the public health organization response teams.
• Designated spokespersons for public health issues and third-party validators in an emergency,
contact numbers.
• Your organizations emergency response team after-hours contact numbers.
• Contact numbers for emergency response information partners.
• Agreements/procedures to join the joint information centre of the emergency operations centre.
• Procedures to secure needed resources.
• Identified vehicles of information dissemination to public, stakeholders, partners
5. Correspond with Stakeholders :
• In the face of an unexpected crisis, take responsibility and communicate all details like what
happened and what will now be your strategy as fast as possible.
• If organization is at fault, apologize to the audiences immediately
• Speak with a single voice
• Inspire confidence in the organization's audiences.
• Give a clear idea of the scale and nature of the problem to Financial journalists and City analysts.
Tell them how it is being brought under control.
• Restore the lines of communication between senior executives and employees to boost the morale
among staff.
• Communicate with financial audiences so that there is no loss of confidence in the organization and
so that share prices do not fall.
• In case of a take-over bid, communicate clearly to avoid misunderstanding in the face of a
communication campaign by the other group.
• Communicate fast and as much as possible to put right situation that has gone horribly wrong. Take
the help of technology to do so.
• If detailed information is awaited, issue a holding statement to the media saying so as an interim
measure as reassuring the media is extremely important in a crisis situation
 TRUST BUILDING
1. Be in control of the situation :
• Acknowledge the issue
• Make sure the issue is addressed
• Assume responsibility over the issue
2. Address crisis openly & trust your clients :
• Create awareness how company is solving issue
• Communicate that the company is trustworthy by trusting customers
3. Investigate the cause of the crisis :
• Start internal investigation to understand causes of issues so that it does not happen again.
4. Commit to change:
• Company should make credible commitments
• Company should show that they are actually following up on these commitments.
Certain basic tenets that help in building trust are:
1. Empathy and caring
2. Competence and expertise
3. Honesty and openness
4. Commitment
5. Accountability