Honestly…|an honest take on the world of PR and other things by Cindy Ronzoni

Today’s post is for executives who hire public relations/corporate communications personnel and agencies, especially for those who hire the heads of the department. If this is you then I have some advice. The first of which is stop what you are doing and immediately read last week’s BUSINESS WEEK cover story about blogs. The article is an updated story written three years ago by writers Stephen Baker and Heather Green. It’s an absolutely fantastic read that will help you understand the blogosphere and educate you about the new social networking tools. Below is a link to the article to make it easier.

Beyond the Blogs (Business Week)

This article was extremely interesting and provides me with a ton of ideas to blog about, but today’s post is about the need for supercommunicators in PR departments. Baker and Green used that term in the article and I just love it. It’s perfect summation of the role that the head of communications needs to play in this day and age.

Who’s a supercommunicator? Supercommunicators are those people who are utilizing all the means readily available to communicate either personally or professionally with others. Words like Twitter, Facebook, applications, plugins, meebo, mashups are all part of their daily lexicons.

Traditional PR just doesn’t cut it anymore. There’s no excuse not to be monitoring the blogs and hearing what your audience is saying about you or your company. With this being the case, it is IMPERATIVE that the head of communications at any company, no matter the size, has someone in the department who is monitoring and/or employing these tools. I would even go as far as to say that if the candidate doesn’t have a Facebook page, that you shouldn’t hire him/her!

When I was employed in a similar capacity I had alerts sent to my computer from a variety of services. Anytime anyone (either a journalist, blogger, consumer, photographer) posted anything on the Internet about my company I knew about it. And I can’t begin to tell you how valuable that was. Not only are you able to put out potential fires quickly or provide top-notch customer service, but you have a focus group instantly available.

Here’s an excerpt from the article which further confirms my point.

J.P. Rangaswami…runs technology at BT (BT), the British telecom giant, and is famous for an approach that blends inside and outside networks. We leave a message with the press department. A day passes. We wonder if we should try another number before it strikes us how silly we’ve been. We can go straight to the person! That’s what social media lets you do. We leave a comment on Rangaswami’s blog, ConfusedofCalcutta, and promptly get a reply. He’s flying to San Francisco, but he leaves his Facebook and Twitter contacts, along with a cell phone number.

I can’t tell you how often that still occurs. Reporters who call PR departments and never get call backs or get them at the end of the day when it’s passed their deadlines (another PR ploy.) I like being accessible. As a PR veteran, I personally take offense when a reporter contacts one of my executives because they couldn’t find me. That’s my job-to handle their needs. As such, I’ve become accustomed to including in my email signatures the fact that I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Instant Message. I was proud of the fact that if a reporter wanted to reach me immediately, he had these other options. Most of the time I received simple questions from them, but then there were the other times when I able to be included in stories I normally would have never been. But by being online, reporters had direct access to me. And being a smaller company, I welcomed any chance I could to be a part of a larger trend piece. And the reason why we got them…by being accessible.

I also tried an experiment last week. In an earlier post, I wrote about the frustrating experience I had as a customer of Verizon Communications. Since the only option I was offered to express my concerns was through a written letter vs. electronic email, I thought I might blog about it to see if anyone in Verizon’s PR department was monitoring the blogs. Needless to say, I haven’t heard from anyone yet. Not surprising though. PR departments who are steeped in the traditional PR methods will never receive the value of connecting with their customers utilizing these new tools.

If anyone reading this has a differing opinion I’d love to hear it. Please note that I do believe that a head a PR department should possess a million other skills, but new media should definitely be one of them.

Well, I got to go update my Facebook page and sign up to follow these Business Week writers on Twitter.

Signed,

An Aspiring Supercommunicator