Corporate Communication - Media Relations

The topic for today is media relations. The media today is dominant and plays a crucial role in molding the mindsets of the public.

Photo Credit: Google images

Media relations involve maintaining and managing communication with the media. This comprises of communicating with the journalist, all the writers, editors and producers who control what will appear in print, online and broadcast. Media relations deal with informing the media about the news, policies, missions, vision, aims, ventures etc. of the organization.  This way the information is given directly to those who produce and publish news. The main aim of maintaining media relation is to get positive coverage for the respective organization.

Let's not complicate this, basically media relations is nothing but maintaining healthy relations with the media so that they don’t write/broadcast anything that will bring negative thoughts about the organization in the minds of the audience. Lets understand this with a fun example.

Example:

Imagine a situation where, you and your family live in a building in which, about 50 other families reside. Now, one day the police come to your home and after about an hour they leave along with your father. Residents have seen this.

Imagine the kind of speculations that will happen. Everyone will have a different story to share. So many assumptions!!! People are bound to discuss and gossip about the incident and when they discuss it, everyone is going to have a theory of their own. Some might say he was arrested for drug abuse while some may say murder and what not. They may even come up with a back-story ‘they just renovated their house and bought a new car, where do you think they got the money from? … I always knew there was something fishy about them … they are smugglers! ’.  There will be so many theories about why the police was at your home. The chances are nobody will talk about it in front of you but will gossip as soon as you turn your back! They won’t try and find out what really happened, they usually just gossip, that’s easy, no?

While, what really happened was, your father’s childhood friend, now a cop, came to meet him and then they both decided to go out for lunch! -_-

So at this point there are so many theories and questions in the minds of the neighbour’s. How would you clear the misunderstanding? Simple! Every neighbourhood has these peculiar people who are informers, these are those, who find out thing about everyone living or dead! They spread the news of what they found. These are those very people who somehow are always aware of what’s happening and what’s not. They are curious and voluntary detectives of the society – yes! These are none other than uncles and aunties we turn to for information about absolutely anybody living in and around!

The easiest way to get the true story out would be to go to these voluntary detectives and tell them what really happened! How fast do you think the news will spread? It’s a curious neighbourhood after all! :P

Now from the Point of view of the organisation,

The Family = Organisation

The Neighbour’s = External audience

The Voluntary detectives = Media

Can you picture that? In this case there is something that happened in the organization and its external audience, who is not aware of the true story start assuming what might have happened? In order to clear doubts and to tell them the true story, the organization turns to the media and through press releases or conferences share their side of the story. By doing this, they help to notify the external audience about what happened and clear the rumours.

Photo Credit: Google images

Most organisations share their side of the story with the media before the media finds out about it themselves. The perks of doing this are that, the organization is being true and honest with the media as well as saving them their time and energy.  This also results in positive coverage for the organization. Apart from that, because the media and the organization work closely with each other they tend to develop friendship. This is what media relations are about, maintaining and managing communication with the organizations. 

For today, that’s all folk’s!! :)

“Being relevant to your customers only when you’re trying to sell something means choosing to be irrelevant to them for the rest of the time.”

― Stan Slap

Corporate Communication - External communication

I am back with another concept today – external communication. Just like the previous post, this too will be explained in detail in the simplest form possible.

photo credit: Hallvarsson and Halvarsson

External communication - How the book says it!

External communication is the process in which, information is carried in and out of the organization.  This information is usually transferred through the exchange of messages with consumers, distributors, journalist, vendors, competitors and community representatives i.e. the stakeholders of the organization and the community as a whole.

External communication is the link between the organization and the public. External communication is done to generate favorable impressions with its public.

Yep! That was dry!

We have already discussed what internal communication is, so external communication should be rather easy to comprehend. External is nothing but that which forms the outer surface or structure of something. With context of an organization, external audience, are those who form its outer surface like the consumers, distributors, journalist, vendors, competitors and community representatives while the internal audience, are the employees.

Taking forward the example given for internal communication where in, the organization was a family of six (who decided to buy a new car), external communication can be explained as follows: -

Example
Imagine the family of six (grandparents, parents and a couple of teen children), are living in a building housing about 50 odd families. During Diwali it is a tradition to give ‘Faral’ (sweets and savory food items) to ones’ neighbour’s/friends/relatives. Now, as per the tradition, the mother (of the teen children) goes to every family with a plate of ‘Faral’. She talks to the ladies of the houses she visits and then shares the news of the family buying a new car. In this way the news is shared with all the families in the building and now everybody knows that they are expecting a new car in the compound.

Now lets look at the same scenario from the organizations’ point of view,

Family of six = Organization

Building = Distributors, Stakeholders, Journalist, Vendors, Competitors and Community representatives

Mother = Spokesperson  

Made sense? Okay so looking at this scenario from the organizations point of view one can understand that, the organization took a decision (of buying a car) and then shared the news with its external audience (the families in the building) through a spokesperson (mother) and thus the external audience is now aware of the new development that the organization is about to see.

This communication that the organization undertakes in order to acquaint its external audience with the changes/trends/decisions etc. is known as external communication. Keeping your external audience informed about the missions, vision, new development etc. helps to gain trust and reliability. It helps to create a favourable impression of the organization in the eyes of its external audience.

It is of utmost importance that the organization keeps its audiences, be it internal or external, well informed about its working or the changes that are about to take place. In a family transparency is the key to healthy relationships, and the case is no different with the context of an organization.  We as humans are always curious and want to know what is happening in the lives of our loved one or the ones we deal with. Well-informed audience is always happy audience, don’t you think? :D

I will be back the next time with another concept, till then see you all. :)

“Being relevant to your customers only when you’re trying to sell something means choosing to be irrelevant to them for the rest of the time.”

― Stan Slap

Corporate Communication – Internal Communication

As promised, that I would discuss concepts of corporate communication and relate them to daily life situations, here is my second post on Internal communication.

                                   
Photo Credit: Jostel Corporation 

Theoretically speaking, Internal communication refers to the exchange of information and ideas within the organization.  Internal communication helps the employees do their jobs, develop clear sense of the organization’s mission and identify and react quickly to potential problems. It helps to maintain a flow of information in the organization.  The various terms used to describe communication between the organization and its employees are, ‘staff communication’, ‘employee communication’ and ‘ internal communication’.  Significance of organizational/internal communication is employee productivity and organizational identification.

Phew!! That was heavy! :P

You might wonder why begin with internal communication when there are so many other topics that can be discussed? Well it’s simple, isn’t it? Charity always begins at home. In order to succeed one should always start with himself/herself and the immediate environment rather than venturing alien land without experience. It is only when you have a strong base can you build a tall building, without a strong and firm base won’t it collapse? 

So let’s try and understand internal communication, you see finally what matters are not remembering the definitions or what the textbook says, but to understand what it tried to explain.

As kids, the first people we communicate with are, our parent, siblings, relatives and those around us. They are the people we deal with frequently and eventually build a bond with. These are those very people who rush to help us out when in trouble, who stand by us in testing times, who celebrate our victories and help us recover from our defeat and fight back. This is our family and the whole concept has the base of – LOVE, TRUST and LOYALTY.

Photo Credit: Google Images

In the context of an organization, the employees are the family. You GET what you GIVE, if you treat your employees as family they will treat you similarly. It is not less known a fact that, people go leaps and bounds in order to be there for the ones they love and this is exactly what the organization tries to achieve from its employees. The employees are eventually the ambassadors of the organization. If the employees aren’t happy or don’t trust the organization, how can you expect external stakeholders to have any trust in the organization?

It is important that the organization communicates about their ventures, goals missions etc. to their employees because unless they make them feel a part of the organization they won’t develop love, trust and loyalty towards it. Well this can be simply understood by this example.

Example:-
Imagine you live in a family of six (grandparents, parents and a couple of teen kids). Now the family is going to buy a new car. The grandparents are the head of the family, they are discussing which car to buy. The kids are not involved in the discussion – they are alienated. How do you think the kids will perceive the family? They are most likely to think that the elders of the house don’t care about their opinion/ they don’t hold importance in the family/ the elders couldn’t care less about them or their opinions.

On the contrary, imagine the family (grandparents and parents) took the main decision of buying a new car and then involved the children in the discussion of ‘which car to buy’. Now, how do you think the children will react? They are most likely to be thrilled, excited, feel important and come to love and respect the elders more because the elders care about what they think and their opinion is important.

Now lets look at the same situation but in the organizational scenario, in which case the

Grandparents = board of directors

Parents = management

Teen children = staff

Does it make sense now? With the second explanation, you can see the hierarchy as well as the involvement of the staff in the decision making process and how the employees’ perception about their organization is formed.

It is only after the employee feels like he/she is a part, an important part, of the organization can he/she develop love, trust and loyalty towards their organization.  Maybe it sounds silly to take special efforts to build a relationship with the employees, but it only makes sense to do so, as the employees are the organizations biggest assets and greatest ambassadors.

Internal communication also proves to be  ‘The Knight in Shining Armor’ during a crisis situation. If the organization communicates well with its staff and keeps them informed about the crisis, they will not be clueless about what is happening and won’t panic. Well-informed staff becomes the strength and support of the organization unlike a situation where the staff is not aware of the latest news about the crisis and they begin loosing trust.

Photo Credit: Google Images

These efforts taken by the organization, in order to build a relationship and communicate with its employees is called internal communication. This can be in the form of birthday greeting, celebrating festivals in office, emails about the company’s ventures, the CEO (or any person at a higher position in the organization) talking to the staff regarding the organization etc. are all efforts of internal communication. An organization that communicates well with its employees be assured that they are not alone, their family (employees) will always have its back! :)

I will soon be back with another concept, till then tootles! :)

“Your company really has to work for you before you’ll really work for your company.”

― Stan Slap