MxMIndia

Tag: Amith Prabhu

  • The last week has seen the Indian media – both social and mainstream – abuzz with two conversations on two men – Sachin Tendulkar and Tarun Tejpal, although, as writes Amith Prabhu, it may be a bit blasphemous to mention both of them in the same sentence

    Amith Prabhu: It’s not about doing the right things, it’s about doing everything right

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    The headline is a quote I had heard during my internship ten years ago. This was stated by the President of the organization, then the opposition party, I was interning at. The crux of this statement focuses on reputation management. Today’s column helps understand that otherwise complex sentence better.

     

    In the past week, Indian media – both social and mainstream was abuzz with two conversations on two men. It may be a bit blasphemous to mention both of them in the same sentence but for purely academic reasons that indeed will happen. While one always did everything right the other portrayed he was doing everything right until an incident that led to all hell breaking loose. The men in question are Sachin Tendulkar and Tarun Tejpal. Though ten years apart in age both have been in their chosen fields for roughly the same time given the former started at 16.

     

    Sachin did everything right and almost had a nation mourning when he retired last week. On the other hand, Tarun tried to do the right things or so it seemed until the incident in question erupted leading to a forced retirement and a nation outraged. What sets these two men as cases studies is the fact that they have both been in the news for a long time, always tried to set different standards and younger cricketers and journalists in large parts have looked up to them as torchbearers of their profession.

     

    While Tendulkar was and is referred to as God by his fans, Tejpal carefully created a demi God like persona by going after the establishment in his avatar as a media owner. It is important to look at these two individuals from the lens of a Public Relations professional. They both toiled hard in their initial years and were supported by those who admired them including the media. But despite the various scandals and controversies that surrounded the sport of cricket the Little Master was always unblemished. On the day he retired, the Government which had already nominated him a Member of Parliament went ahead and announced that he would be awarded the nation’s highest honour – the Bharat Ratna. Both are considered close to the ruling establishment. The similarities end there.

     

    Tejpal had made many enemies on his rise to the top and the recent incident which was badly handled, both by him and his second in command shows that it is important to do everything right, because doing the right things is easy. One gets to pick and choose from various options. But doing everything right would have been in the first place to mind his business. There is an old adage – Take care of your character and your reputation will take care of yourself. If one cannot adhere to this trouble is bound to follow. The right thing to do for Tejpal would have been to surrender to the police instead of sending out the mail that became laughing stock. But that is a hard thing to do. The story will play out for a few more days. India is a nation of short memories. We have seen numerous individuals who have made it to the headlines for the wrong reasons and have been forgotten in order to make way for newcomers who are as notorious.

     

    As PR professionals we help brands, organizations and individuals build a solid reputation. While it is easy to advise our clients on doing the right things it takes courage to advise our courage to do everything right. And there is a difference. Sonia Gandhi would not have been in power if she did not mean what she was saying 10 years ago when she was the leader of the opposition.

     

  • PR is not the same as publicity. PR can lead to publicity but publicity is never PR, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: Public Relations and Bad Publicity

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    Most people who are aware of the term Public Relations or PR thrive on abusing it. Any customer experience that does not go right is called Bad PR. Any misreporting that takes place in a media outlet is called Bad PR.

     

    PR can never be bad. Because PR works like medicine and it can never be bad. Wrong diagnosis can always happen but that does not make the medicine bad. To understand that better, one needs to understand that PR is not the same as publicity. PR can lead to publicity but publicity is never PR.

     

    Why is it then that we often hear this: Bad PR or Good PR – any PR is good? We hear that because people making that claim do not understand the concept of PR and make sweeping statements like that because they interchange Publicity with Public Relations (which are as similar as chalk and cheese).

     

    Hence PR revolves around offering experiences, strengthening relationships, building credibility and creating advocacy. None of these are about publicity. Educating the 99 percent who are not in PR will go a long way but the process should start somewhere and it is up to us PR professionals to drill down this idea when we see someone interchange the two terms.

     

    I always say there is Bad Publicity and Public Relations – a PR campaign can be good or bad but that is a different concept from the term Public Relations. A campaign can be bad because somewhere between concept and execution some errors were made. This can be debated and I hope people who disagree engage in a discussion in the comments section here.

     

    An instant example that comes to mind is the recent news about a Dreamliner that Air India flies losing a panel in flight and how the following day social networks were abuzz about how Air India is best avoided. That was bad publicity. Somewhere the makers of the Dreamliner – the Boeing Company had its Public Relations in place. A reporter did not focus on it in his/her report but on Air India which has never taken Public Relations seriously in recent years.

     

    Well, this will be a recurring topic and it is important to not use Bad PR for our own sake. Because poison and medicine are different. One man’s medicine can be another man’s poison but the fact remains that they are different.

     

  • The friction between PR executives and journalists – both reporters and editors will continue as long as the PR fraternity does not invest in immersions and training. But the question that hovers in my mind is how often we see PR pros tweeting about a typo by a journalist or some reporter not keeping an appointment they made, asks Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: What’s with the friction between Journalists and PR professionals?

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    This column is about one of the biggest problem PR firms and executives face – about being publicly criticized by journalists. This phenomenon is especially common in India. And with the advent of Twitter the magnitude of the trend has increased many fold. One of the motivations to create an annual event for PR professionals was to bring the community together to eventually stand up for each other. And this will happen slowly and steadily. But before that happens there is a long way to go. We need to understand where the journalist is coming from.

     

    Most journalists I have interacted with in the past decade are fair people who are human beings first. But the one bad experience they have after every 9 good experiences is what makes them do what they do, at times.

     

    Two anecdotes will help put what I’m trying to say in the right perspective. First is a conversation I had 10 years ago when I was interning in Parliament House with a political party. An internship those days with the political establishment was rare. After seeing me for a few days this journalist comes to me and asks me what I was doing there with all other seasoned people. I was barely 23. When I explained that I was a student who had got myself an internship for the summer in the PR department of the party she was aghast. She said why PR professionals need to get into this territory when journalists did that job anyway. She told me PR professionals in the business space was understandable but definitely not on the political space. She said journalists needed direct access to the politicians and did not need a gatekeeper. It is unfortunate that a senior journalist whose name I will withhold had such a myopic view of the PR profession and it is possible that the PR professionals were to blame for not conveying their role correctly.

     

    The next incident is as recent as three weeks days old. A senior journalist tweeted about an unpleasant experience he had with a young professional on the phone. The young PR executive called him regarding a news release that was not relevant to his portal. In order to correct her he requested that she sends an email to apology for this lapse by copying her senior. But this did not happen either and he took on to Twitter. She could have better prepared herself by researching more. He could have sent an email to her seniors to share his displeasure instead of tweeting. They made choices they thought that were right. The moot point has there is something seriously going wrong and we need to fix it before it gets out of control.

     

    These two incidents speak of a trend of friction between the two sides, which in my opinion can be completely avoided. This problem will increase until both sides of the same coin decide to get their act together. How many media outlets today display names, designations and contact details of all their reporters? How many PR firms have a well-benchmarked training programme for media relations?

     

    The friction between PR executives and journalists – both reporters and editors will continue as long as the PR fraternity does not invest in immersions and training. But the question that hovers in my mind is how often we see PR pros tweeting about a typo by a journalist or some reporter not keeping an appointment they made. Time to create a joint forum with representatives from small and large media houses and small and large PR firms which meets at least once a year in the key metros. In the end we all need each other.

     

    Amith Prabhu is the founder of The PRomise Foundation which organises Praxis. During the day he is a full-time employee at a leading PR firm in its Chicago office. Views expressed here are the author’s own and don’t represent those of his past, present, future employer or of MxMIndia. You can connect with him on Twitter @amithpr

     

  • PR companies are more like law firms as the basis for what they do is rooted in consulting, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: Public Relations for dummies

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    This column aims to explain in less than 700 words the world of Public Relations to those who most often think that the profession is all about wining, dining and planting stories. Time and again we come across people including our elders at home, who worked in traditional professions who want to know what really goes on in Public Relations. I was to write the second part of the theme I focused on last week but decided to postpone that to next week as I needed more time to research that topic better and write about this because two people from advertising I recently met in Chicago asked me what really goes on in Public Relations.

     

    I’m not going to define Public Relations as that is been done by several experts over the years. I’m hoping to use five bullet points and help explain the core of this profession that one can use to share with those who are curious. This comes from a collection of thoughts from over a decade of being in this business.

     

    I like to begin by stating that PR firms are not agencies and the PR community is not an industry. Both these terms have been wrongly used for the want of a better word and it misleads people to think PR firms are like ad agencies. I always believe PR companies are more like law firms as the basis for what we do is rooted in consulting. Hence advising clients on what is the right thing to do and counseling them when the wrong thing is done is a significant part of the job.

     

    PR firms work with various types of clients, helping them do things that enhance their reputation. Traditionally, this included getting third party endorsements through media coverage and the notion that is all that PR does has stayed. PR goes beyond that to include employee engagement, crisis communications, investor relations, blogger outreach, social media management, government relations and several other strategic and tactical things.

     

    The profession is rooted in communications – at the right time, to the right audiences and using the right medium. If the time, the audience and the medium are not mapped and matched then the effort is in vain. Hence PR professionals need to have an eye for detail, an ear to the ground and a sharp nose to smell the floating fragrances. Getting coverage in 24 publications on a Monday is pointless if the only publication the audience reads is the 25th one and that too on a Sunday.

     

    Public Relations is about proactivity. Taking those important steps on behalf of the oragnisation or brand to highlight social responsibility, corporate governance or even an issue that has the potential to blow into a messy situation. Hence the job can be 24/7 and involves a lot of strategic thinking.

     

    Ultimately, PR is 10% part of the 4th P of Marketing as Publicity can also be got by paying for it. It is 90% a management function and an important one at that with a direct impact on the company’s fortunes. Several CEOs who understand the value of this function lead it subtlety by getting the in-house head of PR to directly report to them rather than to the marketing head.

     

    I’m sure over the last six to seven decades of this profession’s formal existence in the western hemisphere and in the last two decades of being part of India people in few professions have tried to malign the profession for vested interests. Advertising folks have considered PR to be a poor cousin, lawyers have deemed to be story stoppers and marketers have thought of it as being a column centimeter coverage generators. In addition a few quacks masquerading as wheeler dealers have brought disrepute to the profession. But PR has always held its ground and of late is coming into its own by carving a niche for itself in the world of social, political, business and media management. PR is indispensable to build a good reputation. And it starts within.

     

  • Educating clients that PR is about Return on Objectives and not Return on Investment the profession can bring win back the respect it deserves, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: How Public Relations can win back the respect it deserves!

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    Exactly a year ago I read an article http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/15/why-public-relations-gets-no-respect/ and realized that PR has to work harder to keep a strong reputation in order to make those who invest in it realize its value, those who choose to study it and make a career out of it realize its potential and to those who know of it and read about it realize its significance.

     

    Several people have written blogs and columns on this topic and most often the issue gets brushed aside or pushed under the carpet. I am writing this column purely in the Indian context having spent the large part of the last decade in India. I will also touch upon this next week with specific reference to how a key stakeholder in our business – the journalist thinks of the PR professional. This column is with reference to clients – both those who understand and those who do not understand the concept of Public Relations.

     

    Most in-house professionals who engage with their consultancy counterparts have worked with a consultancy in the early days of their career and understand its inner working. Quite often, the in-house professional not only knows more about Public Relations but definitely knows more about the business they operate in. This is the first level of where superiority develops.

     

    Next comes the two most essential traits that consultants fail to develop – an undying commitment to the client’s cause because he or she works on multiple clients and cannot dedicate time and effort in entirety and because several of us fail to develop a thorough understanding of the sector our client operates in, quickly. In addition to this time for industry knowledge enhancement and time to focus on creative thinking and strategic planning is limited. This leads to a fractured relationship in many cases thus lowering the respect that comes from the client in many instances.

     

    The third aspect which leads to Public Relations getting no respect is where the client thinks that the only job of PR is to get press coverage for any and everything that the client considers news and this mentality has to change on both sides. The PR consultancy needs to push back and educate the client (this generally happens when the client is from marketing and has not had prior PR consultancy experience) that PR is not at all about media coverage but is much more than that. Media coverage is just a byproduct of a number of other things that are done to enhance the reputation of the client’s brand.

     

    Lastly, clients confuse PR with advertising and expect a Return on Investment (ROI). I do not think PR efforts can ever have an ROI. What PR efforts can have is an ROO or a Return on Objective. Where a set of objectives set up at the beginning of a campaign can be evaluated to see if they were met. And media coverage or clips can never be an objective.

     

    If these four are sorted from Day One of a relationship – treating each other as equal partners and not as vendor or supplier; following the FCUK principle of Focus, Commitment, Understanding and Knowledge; Educating client that PR is not about media coverage and that PR is about ROO and not ROI – the profession can bring win back the respect it deserves. It is in our hands to make it or break it and the chances are higher that we will make it.

     

  • Upgrading skills – by attending training programmes/webinars, reading, attending a global PR conference or personal study trips – entails making the right investments in one’s career, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: How PR professionals can upgrade their skills

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    I recently got to know that to continue practising as a medical doctor in the US, one needs to take board exams and clear them every 10 years whatever the age of the physician. I have never heard of such a thing in India. Upon graduation a doctor can practise for life and choose to upgrade his or her skills only if they wish to.

     

    Another fascinating thing I discovered couple of years ago is that for business communicators and PR professionals, two trade associations – IABC and PRSA offer a certification called the ABC and APR respectively. The day is not far when this will see a light of day. Just as the medical profession sees quacks emerging from time to time, the PR profession has seen such elements emerge who in their greed for money and power have tried to tarnish the reputation of the profession but have not succeeded quite well.

     

    In this column, I hope to address a constant question I get asked by several people as to how does one upgrade skills periodically. My constant response is that one needs to budget for the same in terms of time and money and do it at one or both levels. Basic and Advanced. The basic level involves investing in good printed and online literature. This includes accessing case studies through pay walls especially from festivals like Cannes and also buying books on the profession whenever one gets a chance. Even buying and reading three books a year can set you up for success. If that is impossible, invest in four or five webinars annually and these are easy to attend.

     

    I asked eight young professionals I met at Lavasa recently two random questions – a) Which was the last book on Public Relations they had read and b) How many books on Public Relations they had read in the last one or two years. The answer from all of them was negative. And I ensured they belonged to eight different organisations. While this takes care of the basic need taking time to read the print or online versions of at least two Indian and two international general interest magazines like Time, The Economist, Outlook, India Today will just add value. (By reading, I mean reading ten articles from these four in total). This is in addition to the business magazines and business dailies one reads anyway as part of work.

     

    Moving to the advanced level of upgrading skills, there are two ways of doing this and these certainly need a lot of preparation and patience. The first is to do an international course online when one has completed 10 to 12 years in the business and has saved some money to make that investment. These courses do not come cheap. I have hyperlinked some of them for your benefit at the end of the column. But these are definitely worthwhile investments. Another option is to attend a global PR conference once every 4-5 years. While these do not offer certificates, the potent mix of knowledge and networking certainly makes a difference. One such conference I would strongly recommend is the Global PR Summit form Holmes Report in Miami which will see its second edition rolling out exactly a month from now. I was fortunate to be at the first edition and will hopefully be at the second. It is time and money well spent. Flight, stay and registration from India will cost about Rs 3 lakh if you already have a visa. But in three days, the exposure one gets is a big deal.

     

    Travelling also impact one’s worldview in a big way and one should plan personal study trips within and outside India every 3-4 years. These are not holidays but educative excursions. Ultimately, an important aspect of Public Relations is about advising the organisation on how to best leverage existing and potential equations.

     

    All these may seem expensive but with the right planning it certainly is possible. Here are seven links to explore investments that will make sense from a long term. In addition to these there are several universities in the USA and Europe which offer online programmes at the masters level.

     

    CIPR

    PRSA

    Mediabistro

    IABC

    PRCA

    PR Moment

     

     

  • Despite the hardship written on their face, the beggar in Chicago always wears a smile, writes Amith Prabhu. An example of how one can learn basic PR tactics from a street beggar

    Amith Prabhu: Beggars are not choosers but in Chicago they also know how not to be losers

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    There is some element of Public Relations in every walk of life. As an avid practitioner and a true blue professional, I try and look for traces of PR in everything purely for academic reasons. Having spent two years in Chicago I have no doubt that this city is indeed a pioneer for the profession and has given the world several brands that took birth in the area over the last 150 years.

     

    But one aspect of the city that has caught my fancy is the few beggars that straddle the high footfall locations. Despite all the greatness of this city, it has its share of homeless and hungry. Every evening when one walks home in downtown or heads to one of the train stations in the west loop from the city centre, paths do cross with these men and women who are hoping against hope to earn a few dollars.

     

    But what sets them apart is the way they approach a potential benefactor. And to me this is public relations in its simplest yet most powerful form. I was not convinced whether an entire column should be devoted to this observation but the bottomline is about how packaging goes a long way in building reputation and this is at the heart of Public Relations.

     

    These men and women are generally well-dressed. They have a pleasant demeanor and most importantly have a script that is succinct and impressive. Most of them greet passersby by saying Happy Monday or Enjoy your Weekend. Importantly, despite the hardship written on their face, they always wear a smile. Best of all, even if they did not receive a cent from the one they solicited, they do not curse or abuse because they know the same person will pass by again on that same route.

     

    We think of big public relations but here’s an example of how one can learn basic public relations tactics from a street beggar. A column on this theme may seem out of place but the idea is to share anecdotes and learn from every possible situation. India has plenty of beggars and the general public is largely indifferent to them. It is a menace that adds to the already existing problems of urbanism. But if these beggars learnt to behave politely they would do themselves a favour because beggars are not choosers but they can choose not to be losers.

     

    Amith Prabhu is founder of The PRomise Foundation which organises Praxis, the annual summit for PR & Corp Comm professionals in India. During the day he is a full time employee at a leading PR firm’s Chicago office. Views expressed here are the author’s own and don’t represent those of his past, present, future employer or of MxMIndia. You can connect with him on Twitter @amithpr

     

  • There are a bunch of those under 30 who are focused on executing the event. There are those in the 30- to 40-year age bracket who are planning various elements of the conference. And there are those over 40 who are supporting the event by way of their presence and sponsorship, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: Musings from India’s only weekend summit for Public Relations

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    What happens once may not happen twice but once happens twice can always happen thrice. These are my favourite lines from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. I’m writing this column on the car as I travel from Lavasa to Mumbai. I feel humbled that I’m part of a group of 15 young men and women who have put together the second edition of what is arguably India’s only annual weekend summit for Public Relations and Corporate Communications professionals. The last two days at the hill city of Lavasa were intense and enriching. Over 250 professionals from around the country came together to celebrate the profession.

     

    While a report of the event will be found elsewhere I want to highlight how the movement of PR doing PR for itself has gotten off to a solid start. Praxis was created with the singular belief that the profession needed a forum to come together and the concept was born on a Twitter conversation. Ever since the first edition took place in Pondicherry in November 2012, a lot of traction both online and offline has happened leading to a natural build up to this event which makes it obvious that this completely volunteer led event is here to stay.

     

    What sets Praxix aside is the entire approach of the event organisers lend to engaging with speakers, sponsors and participants. A sense of community is paramount. Attention to detail and a high adherence to punctuality give the summit a uniqueness very few events in the similar space can talk of. Having established a reputation for being a serious event with a lot of fun goes a long way in getting people to look forward to the next edition. The excellent line-up of speakers with solid content to share add to the vibrancy of the flow.

     

    I am glad that the collaboration between multiple generations is a fine example that several other sectors can learn from and emulate. There are a bunch of those under 30 who are focused on executing the event. There are those in the 30- to 40-year age bracket who are planning various elements of the conference. And there are those over 40 who are supporting the event by way of their presence and sponsorship.

     

    All eyes are on the third edition which will happen somewhere in the North around a year from now. Because whatever happens once may not happen twice but whatever happens twice will certainly happen thrice and in this case go on to happen annually. I’m glad that this was an idea whose time had come. And some of us took it upon ourselves to make it happen.

     

    Amith Prabhu is the founder of The PRomise Foundation which organises Praxis. During the day he is a full-time employee at a leading PR firm in its Chicago office. Views expressed here are the author’s own and don’t represent those of his past, present, future employer or of MxMIndia. You can connect with him on Twitter @amithpr

     

  • Social media is the becoming the new traditional media in PR the world over, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: Public Relations has a bigger stake in Social Media than any other stream

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    This one is special because it is the first one I’m writing sitting in India after I began this column in June. For the record, all the previous columns were written out of Chicago. This trip to India is special as I’m visiting to help organise the only weekend Public Relations summit that takes place later this week at Lavasa. What struck me about this week is that India will host its first Social Media Week in Mumbai. Having attended a few social media week events in Chicago earlier this year I know important the series of events that unfold are. A range of events take place at various venues giving people a chance to learn, network and share in the realm of social media.

     

    Why would one choose to write a PR column on the social media week? The answer is simple. Social media is the becoming the new traditional media in Public Relations the world over. The eternal debate of who owns social will never be answered but the common sense answer is that smart firms that recognise the potential and advances of social media will own this space. Ad agencies that offer earned media solutions. PR firms that offer media buying services and Media planning companies that offer creative ideas that can be smartly executed in the owned and eared space will lead the way.

     

    The overlaps are taking place and organisations are investing heavily in acquiring the right talent. Ad agencies and PR firms have created or are in the process of creating business units that cater to social media for existing clients or for new clients that want to be marketed only through this medium. Numerous social media shops are mushrooming offering tweeting, posting and blogging services. Where does all this lead to? To the point where the debate of who owns social media unravels. In my opinion, there will never be a clear answer but if there is one group who will have a greater stake in this business it is those who have traditionally worked in PR firms.

     

    Social media is about conversations that organisations and brands have online with stakeholders that can emerge from the stakeholder or from the organisation. But ultimately the external stakeholder – most often the client or customer has his or her way on this medium which can break or make reputations. Public Relations therefore plays a huge role in owning a large chunk of this space. This week two events are taking place in this space. One is the Mumbai chapter of the global Social Media Week and the other is the second edition of PRAXIS. While one has PR people in the list of speakers and advisory board, the other has social media champs playing a variety of roles.

     

    Three cheers to the growth of social and to the growth of social in the world of Public Relations. May the social media week go to many more Indian cities and may the Indian citizen continue to exploit all that social media has to offer. There is no quicker, cheaper and closer stakeholder outreach than that which takes place on social media.

     

    Amith Prabhu is founder of The PRomise Foundation which organises PRAXIS – the annual summit for PR & Corp Comm professionals in India. During the day he is a full-time employee at a leading PR firm’s Chicago office. Views expressed here are the author’s own and don’t represent those of his past, present, future employer or of MxMIndia. You can connect with him on Twitter @amithpr

     

  • Though storytelling is how PR as a business and a profession came to be, somewhere down the line the strategy got lost. But it is regaining its lusture, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: How Storytelling has come to become the new buzzword in PR

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    Stories have been told for as long as there has been life. A story was told through drawings, actions and verbally from time immemorial. The first things that little children start comprehending are simple stories. Storybooks and storytimes are how evenings would come to an end as little kids. The dining table at home is where stories got told as one grew up. Then there was the television around which a family gathered to view and listen to fiction and non-fiction stories.  But despite this word being so commonly used a new way of looking at it as emerged in the business of Public Relations in the last couple of years, if not longer.

     

    Storytelling does not need to be defined as everyone understands it. But does everyone get how intelligent storytelling can stand out? Is storytelling just an art or is there a science to it? Are storytellers people who acquire a skill over time or are born with a flair to tell stories in a compelling way? This column today, attempts to answer this and more in a basic way. No doubt storytelling is how PR as a business and  a profession came to be but somewhere down the line the strategy got lost and it became more a tactical activity. It is regaining its lusture.

     

    Storytelling is both an art and a science. It is an art because how it is told depends on who is telling it. It is a science because a good story has a beginning and an end that conveys a happening. If PR professionals practice writing good stories, mastery of this very important tool will emerge. Press releases can no longer be vanilla information notes with a quote or two. They need to be compelling enough for news outlets to even consider reading them beyond the headline. More important than that is how stories unfold in the new space of information consumption – the world of social media. While Twitter presents the challenge of presenting a story in 140 characters which people work around by tweeting links to larger stories, Facebook has to deal with limited attention span that its users have come to have.

     

    Stories are the new press releases and these are being told in different ways – social media posts, videos, podcasts, talks at events, op-eds in digital and print and through graphic art. People have stopped blindly believing in news media they way they did a few years ago thanks to the advent of paid content. Today, every story about a person, a commercial event or a brand is taken with a pinch of salt because the reader/viewer/listener is not sure if this was a genuine story that emanated from a third party or was paid for to be published. In this scenario telling a story in a way that is credible gains high importance.

     

    The three worlds of Paid, Owned and Earned media overlap time and again. The same story will be looked at differently in these three streams. The only way out is to constantly have one’s ear to the ground, keep narrating stories through the written word and verbally because good stories get better when the storyteller practices long and hard. Storytelling in the way we see it is here to stay. Smart PR practitioners of the future will be those who are good storytellers.

     

    Amith Prabhu is founder of The PRomise Foundation which organises PRAXIS – the annual summit for PR & Corp Comm professionals. During the day he is a full-time employee at a leading Public Relations firm’s Chicago office. Views expressed here are the author’s own and don’t represent those of his past, present, future employer or of MxMIndia. You can connect with him on Twitter @amithpr

     

  • Public Relations should be built on the bedrock of media training, writes Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: Why our politicians must undertake media training

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    Lately, my columns have been focusing on political themes. Indian politics is my pet passion but I promise after this one will stay away from politics until something major happens in the intersection of politics and Public Relations that merits a column. The last couple of weeks have seen an increase in the number of unusual remarks by certain key politicians who talk and they were a mix of prepared statements and of the cuff statements. Either way they came across as utterances that much thought had not gone into. We will take two or three and then examine why media training is paramount to political public relations as much as it is to the world of business and other disciplines.

     

    First, let’s look at the statement the Defence Minister made in Parliament soon after an attack on soldiers near the border led to loss of precious lives. A K Antony said something to the effect that terrorists dressed in army uniforms carried out the ambush. This may or may not have been true. But the error was in saying it so confidently as if he were at the scene of crime. He was going by the advice given to him by top army officials but the tonality and style could have been more tentative and the choice of words could have been smarter. Had he said that ‘initial reports’ coming in are that a few Indian soldiers have been killed. However the nature of the killings indicate that this could be either an attack by the state machinery or by terrorists dressed in army fatigue. And this limits the exposure one has to taunt and triviality. While reports later confirmed that this was the information he was fed by those on the line of duty who survived.

     

    A few days later, the Indian Energy Minister made a comment at a press conference that there are various austerity ideas being floated. Shutting petrol pumps during the night is one of them. But nothing has been decided. It is just a proposal, urging people to save fuel by using their vehicles sparingly. This was the most stupid statement to make in a nation of 1.3 billion people where 12% own a registered motor vehicle and makes a sizable number that can panic. Was getting into the details with an idea however bright necessary? The gentleman is known to be a lose canon at times. And all this can change with media training.

     

    Political parties have spokesperson training programmes but do these grown up men and women care to learn? The days of having just print journalists are gone. The media fraternity includes those who write, broadcast, telecast and blog. Moreover several international media outlets are also present to cover newsworthy items of the day. Given this scenario it should be mandatory to get the political leadership undergo an intense training in talking to the media because it is not the same as talking to voters at an insipid rally. That makes the market for media training companies lucrative because the time is not far when political parties will have no option but to invest in professional media trainers. Because a large part of Public Relations is built on the bedrock of media training.

     

    Amith Prabhu is founder of The PRomise Foundation which organises PRAXIS – the annual summit for PR & Corp Comm professionals in India. During the day he is a full-time employee at a leading public relations firm in their Chicago office. The views expressed here are the author’s own and don’t represent those of his past, present, future employer or of MxMIndia. You can connect with him on Twitter @amithpr

     

  • Narendra Modi has taken the lead in online outreach and politicians from his own party and those from others have a lot of catching up to do, writs Amith Prabhu

    Amith Prabhu: Modi’s online Public Relations campaign

    By Amith Prabhu

     

    Want a master class in online public relations? Go no further than the last 50 handles of the 600 followed by Narendra Modi on Twitter. Despite all the controversy he rakes up by things he has done and things he says his inner circle of digital marketers are indeed doing an excellent job of creating the tools that help his outreach. Clues to this avalanche are found in the list of people followed on Twitter

     

    I belong to the group of people who are the harshest critics of a man who presided over one of the best man-made disasters of the last decade. I write this column purely for academic reasons and don’t wish to bring my ideology to the fore. Three to four things stand out and can be insightful to those who plan similar campaigns in the future and this is neither a blog of praise nor a blog to criticize.

     

    First things first – he must be the first and only politician to create dedicated Twitter handles in nine regional languages that target the large states where BJP has a presence. These include Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Assamese, Urdu, Oriya, Tamil, Bangla and Sanskrit. While most of these handles have less than a couple of thousand followers and some in the hundreds the fact that these exists and are active speaks volumes of the gameplan that he plans to unfold in the days ahead. Even the Pope does not have a presence in as many languages.

     

    The next initiative is the portal india272.com which describes itself as an online and on-ground volunteering platform to help the BJP in its Mission towards gaining a 272+ seat majority in the 545 seat Lok Sabha. In this sentence and elsewhere it is best to read BJP as Modi as these are all initiatives not necessarily by the party organization but by the individual and his supporters. Evidence is in the images used that focus on one person throughout.

     

    Of the 670 Twitter accounts that are followed there are three categories – organizations that are dominantly news outlets, BJP officebearers from across the country of different level and stature and sycophants who have Namo4Pm in their bio or display name. The Gandhi family finally has competition when it comes to people who swear blindly by them. This hero worship will reach its peak in the digital world as the election season gets closer.

     

    The personal website and blog: Very few Indian politicians have managed to copy the Obama style of internet presence the way Modi has and proof of this is in his personal website and blog. This single tool of owned media has neutralized all the negative earned media built up over the last decade. The debate on who writes these blogs is secondary. The fact that these exist is something for all other leaders to ponder on.

     

    The question that everyone asks is how many actual voters do all these outreach tools really reach? And in my opinion the numbers do not matter. Having a presence that enables young voters and the urban population that is well disposed to tablets, apps and the mobile internet is good enough. Modi has taken the lead and politicians from his own party and those from others have a lot of catching up to do.  A digital marketing plan so robust will be hard to match because real followers and likes cannot be bought like votes. In the end it is a perception game and the winner may take it all.

     

    Amith Prabhu is the founder of The PRomise Foundation which organises PRAXIS – the annual summit for PR & Corp Comm professionals in India. During the day he is a full time employee at a leading Public Relations firm in their Chicago office. He spent the first eight years of his post graduation career in India and is in the US for two years of which he has completed 18 months. Views expressed here are the author’s own and don’t represent those of his past, present, future employer or of MxMIndia. You can connect with him on Twitter @amithpr