I am a firm believer in reading and absorbing research and surveys done nationally for how old and new media interact. There are lessons to be learned from this national research on how we should interact in our own communities.
Archives for public-outreach
To many of us integrating social media into our PIO or PAO pr and marketing plan seems to be a daunting task. Some look at it as all encompassing and begin to ignore the traditional and still strong forms of news dissemination such as newspapers and TV. Others see social media as such a big challenge that they push it off and say “I’ll start tomorrow.” But in essence, social media is no more or less an additional tool for the old pr toolbox.
Even after the masses spoke out against Washington’s way of doing business during the last election, politicians and their minions continue to try to spin their talking points to the American people like we just fell off the turnip truck.
It doesn’t make a difference whether it is a democrats or republican, these empty suits continue to use the same old political talking points they used before the election and expect us to fall in line like sheep.
A few days ago I was the guest speaker at the local Rotary. I was giving the Rotarians a general overview of my department and how we provide service to the community. In preparing an outline for my remarks I recalled that a member in the club always throws out a historic trivia challenge during the meetings. His facts are great and always met with amazement and a rumbling across the room of “I didn’t know that!”
Not to be one upped I needed a great wow factor fact about the fire service to win over the hearts and minds.
Over the holiday weekend I have had the opportunity to do some reading and investigation to attempt to put together the facts from a PR perspective of how things could go so terribly wrong in terms of the “they against us” attitude most folks now have towards the TSA. A number of PR gaffs has lead to this perception.
First off the lame TSA Administrator John Pistole used a worn out administration card saying the TSA knows what right for our citizens but unfortunately they haven’t done a good enough job educating people. Again, we’re so stupid that the wonderful changes they put in place and the stellar way in which they presented it to the public is above our scope of appreciation.
As a PR and marketing guy I have over the year been confronted, when a consumer or customer thinks that an injustice has been done to them, spew the old line “I’m going to the papers with this.”
I used to love to hear this sentence spoken when I knew someone with no case, truth or validation to their complaint assumed the “papers” would hold the presses so the masses could hear that we were out of blue logo tees or a donation receipt was not mailed to a donor within moments of the envelope being opened. The chance a journalist or reporter had in receiving a Pulitzer Prize for the irate information usually tended to have them pass on the story.
Over the last year or so I have been closely watching how various corporations, emergency service arms and organizations utilize social media to report on a serious incident or crisis. I am not totally convienced that reporting details rapidly on Twitter or Facebook is the most advantageous way to let the public know about an emergency. With things moving so quickly and so much at stake in giving details, social media can trap you into churning out information before we can actually put the unfolding events into perspective. A case in point took place in Singapore last week.
Yesterday evening I was watching the Mike Huckabee Show on Fox. I like Huckabee. He’s sort of like a left over relic from the Leave it to Beaver era when the country was a kinder, gentler place.
Huck had a cooking piece on about deep frying a turkey. It got me to thinking that many of us as PIO’s are getting ready to let our community know, through releases, speaking engagements or on our websites the numerous dangers presented around Thanksgiving by this form of cooking.
The Backstep Firefighter made a post yesterday titled PR DILEMA:BUFFALO. The post, with video, is about a house fire in Buffalo, the department’s perception of how it was fighting the fire and a neighbor’s perception of lack of effort to get water on the job.
Backstep Firefighter concluded the post with these questions -
Do our public relations go far enough in explaining what we do?
Are our usual messages too technical?
Just when you think you are getting a good handle on social media and how to apply it to your PIO or PAO protocols some new toy comes along to potentially add to the mix.
If Twitters 140 characters aren’t enough room for all the insightful things you have to say, then maybe you’re ready for Tumblr.
As of this writing the 14th miner has been rescued from the Copiapo, Chile cooper and gold mine. I like many, especially those of us in the emergency services, were up all night watching the human drama that was unfolding before our eyes. I was riveted to the raw internet feed from CNN. To this point it has been a flawless rescue effort.
I am duly impressed by the skill and professionalism of the entire rescue team. From those at the mine shaft opening to the rescue workers who went down to supervise the efforts in the mine to the EMT’s and medical staff and mine and government administrators, everything has been done in an organized and flawless manner.
One of the problems we face as disseminators of public information in the social media realm is the question of when is too much information actually detrimental.
A University of Denver study has found that the biggest reason behind Facebook unfriending is a very obvious one: too many unimportant posts or excessive posting. Although the survey related to personal Facebook pages it is still reflective of what the average social media user would also think of us cluttering up their walls.
At one time they were called town criers. When I was a kid there was always someone in the neighborhood who took the lead on posting flyers at the library on various events or spreading news by word of mouth. You always went to people like this if you wanted to spread the word “virally,” before that phrase was actually coined. Today obviously “virally” relates to having information spread across the web. Today the phrase for the old town crier is a “social informant.”
While I was on the road in Texas last week I had the opportunity one night to go into my folders to review PR and marketing links and articles that I stockpile but usually put off reading. In some of my golden oldies from this past June was a video I viewed on “Tips on creating Good Web Videos.” The video was a part the Tactics Video series presented by the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America.
Nothing beats coming into work and immediately hearing “I just read the paper, it looks like you guys are in trouble again.” When I inquired into who and what was in trouble I was told that a story was in Newsday, our Long Island newspaper about the latest loser who riffled through fire department funds, betraying both his fellow brothers and sisters and the public at large.
The problem with the in your face guy who confronted me with the story before I set a foot in the door, is that he assumes all firefighters are the same and all departments are created equal. It didn’t matter to him that the ex firefighter and department in question are about 40 miles from here. For whatever reason, ours is a trade that suffers from collective guilt.
I remember that last year I received an email from a mother in the community asking if the fire department could help her third grade daughter finish an essay she was writing about fire hydrants. I emailed back to have her daughter call me with her questions. A nervous third grader did indeed call, asked her questions, and ultimately awarded the department with a hand written thank you note on lined paper, stickers and all.
There is a certain group of trend arbiters around whom I envision being skinny, wearing all black, with black framed glasses who think that when they speak the entire work of public relations will turn on a dime to do their bidding.
Over the last several years I am becoming progressively irritated when PR pundits keep saying that the standard press release is dead. Maybe the body is cold from where they sit, but in our line of work the old tried and true, boring and predictable press release is our lifeline to the media.
Often we say someone is a good public speaker. But a closer look reveals that someone might be a good public speaker in one discipline while lacking skill in another spoken area.
In my mind public speaking, in our profession as PIO’s, is segmented into a few distinct areas. Throughout the year we address many different audiences in many different venues, each requiring their own specific set of verbal commands and finesse.
I read a quote online recently by Anderson Cooper that puts this discussion into perspective: “Being on camera is easy for me, but speaking in front of several thousands of people, it’s a different skill set. Making speeches gave me a nervous pit in my stomach, so I forced myself to do it.”
I consider myself, due in part to a radio and TV background, to be a pretty good overall public speaker, but when I segment my responsibilities out, the report card indicates that I do need to go to study hall in a few area’s –
In one of my other lives I am the lead broadcaster for Verizon Fios cable coverage of the NASCAR races at Long Island’s Riverhead Raceway. The weekly production is a “production.” A crew of around 10 toils for a good part of the afternoon to get the cables, cameras, monitors, microphones, headsets and electronic equipment in place to make things hum during the evening boradcast.
This past Saturday a racing fan with a small Flip HD video camera came up to me with a request. This woman asked me if it was permissible to video some of the racing action. She told me her son was a frequent visitor to the track and is now in the Army stationed at Fort Jackson. She felt this would be a taste of home for him. I told her it was fine and she proceeded to take her seat in the grandstand with a bunch of family members.
While we worked our way through the Verizon broadcast I noticed this woman shooting the races, interviewing family members for her son, interviewing drivers who went to sit in the grandstand after they raced.
This woman was virtually able to do with a $150 camera what it took two announcers, a 10 man crew and tend of thousands of dollars in equipment to accomplish.
I’m not a big reader of the New York Times; our politics are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. A colleague recently emailed me a link to a Times story about what not to do in case of a crisis communications emergency. I’ll admit it, it’s a great story by Peter Goodman and I encourage you to read it.
The story gives many industry leaders critiques into many of the world’s recent PR disasters including Toyota’s acceleration problems, BP’s oil spill, Goldman Sachs securities fraud and Tiger Woods marital bust-up. Interesting read.
Since we deal with crisis as PIO’s on a regular basis, there is always something to learn from others missteps!
I just read a story on Phoenix’s ABC15.com that leads me to believe that Arizona tourism might be looking to crew up a backup line if the fire starts getting too hot regarding the State’s controversial immigration bill.
The Arizona Governor’s Task Force on Tourism and Economic Vitality has hired HMA Public Relations in what the story says is an effort to “tackle any negative backlash caused by Senate Bill 1070.”
Many of us work very hard to do what we are suppose to do as PIO’s and PAOs , and that’s to get the word out, one of the basic tenets of public relations.
But it is important for us to also remember that PR is a two-way street. A successful fire department public relations program is often designed to report on incidents and tell our story in a positive light. But a PIO or PAO team should also function as a source of feedback and intelligence on what our residents and civic and political leaders are thinking and saying.
Suppose the department you serve in as PIO wanted to prove to the residents of your district that the bond issue for a new firehouse was justified due to the exemplary service you were providing to the community? And suppose you took money out of your departments taxpayer funded budget to purchase signs to place at the scene of past fires, MVA’s etc to hammer the pointy home and let everyone know about the great work you are accomplishing with their taxes? Obviously many citizens would feel a little uncomfortable that perhaps the department was over aggressively politicking for the new firehouse and that their taxpayer dollars were being used to not provide vital services but to pay for signs.
Each year our Department visits the Suffolk County Fire Academy to attend a lecture and do hands on work in the techniques needed to battle fires and incidents involving flammable gas and liquids.
I always enjoy this drill both as a firefighter and a PIO. Quite frankly the hands on portion, as any of you who has taken this kind of training know is quite spectacular as LP gas creates a pretty intense fireball.
As a PIO I look forward to the drill because I get some pretty neat pictures when I am not involved in an evolution and I get plenty of food for thought on how I can let the public know about flammable gas safety.
There’s been a lot of talk recently at conferences I have attended about whether websites have outlived their usefulness and are merely dinosaurs left over from 1990s.
I think in our line of work where fact and not hype are the foundations of our websites, a no frills approach is warranted and the website model fits quite well thank you. Whereas a consumer product or service might look to gain interest through blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube first, most folks who want fire and EMS information will visit our websites as the main source of information. With that said though our websites should still serve as portals to assist in integrating our traditional website and social media marketing efforts.
