Value or Vanity in Selecting Media

When running campaigns, sometimes clients insist in seeing their issue reported in a particular magazine or newspaper. This type of "top down" direction is great because it can really focus your media efforts.

But the big "but" is does that publication reach the target audience? Or is not merely reflecting the CEO's personal preferences. In other words landing a story in a particualr publication might be more about vanity than real value.

If your goal is to simply reach the largest number of Australians, the recent Roy Morgan Readership Survey for the year ending March 2008, is a good guide to where to direct your media relations efforts.

Right now the top three newspapers by circulation in Australia are:

• The Sunday Telegraph (NSW)
• The Sunday Herald Sun (VIC)
• The Sunday Mail (QLD)

And the top three magazines by readership are:

• Australian Women's Weekly
• Woman's day
• New Idea

Whether your media efforts are dictated by volume or vanity, don't forget that media coverage is valuable only if it helps you reach the people you need to talk to.

Roy Morgan figures as reported in the 30 May 2008 edition of AdNews

What Makes a Great Brand

This past week we ran a workshop for one of the most successful community sector organisations in Canberra. The CEO and 35 of her staff spent the day actively exploring ways to move their already dynamic organisation to the next level of performance.

As part of strategizing the future, we asked people to identify organisations they most admired. What made them stand out? And how could they embed the qualities that made others successful, into their own organisation?

The team turned up a list of around 15 organisations they most admired. It was truly an eclectic mix, ranging from the Salvation Army to McDonalds to a popular home decorations magazine.

The group's dicussion identified four factors that make a brand succeed over the long term. An organisation must:

• Have a consistent purpose and recognisable benefits.
• Deliver those benefits day in, day out.
• Continually reinvent itself as customer and community circumstances change.
• Constantly communicate - to staff, customers and all the other organisations that shape its environment.

Each week thousands of words are written about branding. Yet we think this team of 35 passionate community workers provided one of clearest explanations we have seen about what a brand must do, to move from good to great.

Link Your Story to National News

Linking your issue, cause or concern to this week's headline news is one way of attracting media attention. After all your organisation might be able to offer a journalist another perspective on what people are already talking about.

But short of turning into a mega media junkie, how do you find out what's making news?

Each week Australian company, Media Monitors, shows graphs with the top five domestic, international, business, sports and talkback stories. They count the number of times a story has been mentioned across print, radio and television which is a good indication of what's hot and what's not.

So the next time you think about approaching the media check their media index to see where your story might fit.

Consulting Communities

The construction of New Zealand’s first toll highway due to open in 2009 has generated a significant community relations program. The consultation effort is providing information to residents along a seven mile route in the Auckland area.

How the highway construction has been communicated might hold lessons for others involved in infrastructure and environmental projects. These lessons include:

• Community consultations often stop once a project gets the green light. But community relations - telling people what is happening and accommodating their concerns - really finishes when the project finishes and all the teething problems are resolved.
• It’s the communicator’s job to identify communications risks and opportunities to project management. He or she must be at the table with engineers, planners and others from the start so community issues get the same attention as legal and other considerations.
• Everyone working on the project – from the top boss to the plant operator – has to be briefed and buy into the community relations plan. Careless actions at any level can alienate a community and prejudice a project.
• The communicator should work on the premise that you can never give people too much information when a project is likely to impact on their environment or quality of life.
• Provide enough communications channels so everyone affected by the project receives information. Accurate, coordinated and timely information is the lifeblood of these channels.

The days of the old style town hall meeting as a communications channel could well be over. People are often too busy to gather in large groups to hear about a project. And besides, vocal critics can hijack public meetings to the exclusion of others genuinely wanting to find out what's happening and to air their concerns. Other types of meetings include:

• Neighbours meeting in someone’s home for very localized briefings.
• Inviting people to drop by the project office for regular updates.
• Offering telephone briefings at convenient times.
• Offering to speak to established local groups at their meetings.
• Staffing displays in shopping centres or other high traffic areas.
• Community kiosks where people can drop in to see what is happening.
• Working with residents' panels that include critics as well as supporters.
• Special websites or webpages.
• Email to deliver tailored information to particular groups.
• Project-specific blogs where people can comment.
• Holding site inspections when projects hit milestones.
• A regular project newsletter.
• Localized letterbox drops.
• A 24/7 toll free number so people can talk to someone who can speak authoritatively.
• Passing information through local media.
  

Critics might say all this is just too expensive. But in the long run a genuine approach to consultations might be far cheaper than facing legal or political challenges from disaffected communities who feel they have been neglected.

Social Media to Reach Ratepayers

At the recent Local Government Public Relations Association Conference, Deakin University lecturer Ross Monaghan offered insights into how Australian councils can use social media to reach residents.

Monaghan argued social media provided local governments with valuable, yet largely unexploited, communication opportunities given it:

• Is fast and cost effective (around $5000 should get an organisation set up to produce video, blogs, podcasts, wikis and other media)
• Allows councils to directly engage people 24/7 in a more appealing way than plain text communications
• Is becoming increasingly important as more people move on-line

But Monaghan pointed out it will not be all plain sailing for councils:

• Many CEOs did not support or understand social media and some feared using it meant "losing control" of their information. As if they ever had control once information left council chambers.
• PR staff sometimes lack skills to make best use of the new tools
• IT departments are often not supportive
• Access and equity issues come into play when not everyone has computers

He recommended local governments watch what others are doing in the social media space, experiment and gradually integrate the new media into their outreach efforts.