If you just starting out in PR one of the things you will encounter if you are working in a corporate setting is financial and industry analysts. Often these functions are specialized functions which you won't be asked to engage in. Yet, if you are good at PR, it's very common that you may find yourself doing working with both industry and financial analysts (I know I did). After all your core messaging should be the same for the media as it is for financial and industry analysts.
If you have time it's worthwhile watching two recent interviews on BNN. One is with an industry analyst from IDC (Brandon Mensinga) and the other is with a financial analyst from Jefferies and Company (Peter Misek).
(sorry the videos aren't embedded, BNN doesn't offer that ability - very annoying, but what can you do).
Anyway, both Brandon and Peter gave great interviews. But as you can see, industry analysts focus exclusively on the technology. As such, they tend to be more open minded about various possibilities a company could pursue to get back on track. They are use to an endlessly shifting tech landscape and are weary of calling someone down for the count until it's abundantly clear they actually are.
When you listen to Brandon, you get the feeling that RIM shouldn't be counted out just yet.
The financial analysts tend to be more concerned with operations and execution and the question of 'why' a company got itself in to the mess it's in and whether the variables that created the mess are still present or whether they have been addressed.
When you listen to Peter you get the perspective that RIM is all but sunk (I share more Peter's view myself).
What's interesting is that you can see how complicated relationship management gets with various stakeholders. You wouldn't connect Brandon with the same people that you would connect Peter with internally at RIM. Brandon might talk to a Senior Director of Software Development while Peter would probably talk with the CFO or CIO.
And yet, your job as a communicator would be to ensure that despite each speaking with a different person within the company (and each focusing on different facets of the company) that they both walk away with the same 'impression' of RIM's situation.
This is why PR goes beyond simply writing news releases or Tweeting. It's really a very complex art of relationship management and servicing a wide-range of information requests (which is why a good PR person ends up knowing every little detail about the business they work for). When done properly you get all kinds of different stakeholders saying the same thing (because they've all been exposed to the same story - whether they spoke with someone from R&D, finance, or marketing).
Companies tend to get themselves in trouble when they understaff their PR department (media relations, investor relations, analyst relations). And trust me, it's very common - I'd argue 90 per cent of companies understaff their PR departments.
When they tend to view PR as simply writing a news release and managing in-bound media calls. This results in stakeholders basically not getting the tailored messages that they should be getting - where the company's story isn't told to various stakeholders within the context of their preconceived notions.
This is why when you are in a company you have to develop internal relationships with your engineers, marketing folks, and even the finance guys. You can't sit in an ivory tower firing out news releases here and there (even though news releases are a high priority activity, don't get me wrong). You need to leverage expertise from across the business to manage your external stakeholders.
As you can see from the videos, you can't engage with Peter the same way you would with Brandon, they each have a different notion of the issues that are important and require different experts internally to satisfy their desire for clarity and insight.
It's not hard to begin to understand why a lot of PR folks work 70 hour weeks. It's also not hard to begin to understand how a PR department can become swamped and unable to manage relationships effectively.
I continue to say I think a lot of RIM's problems are tied to marketing and PR and when you hear thought leaders talk about RIM (such as Brandon and Peter) you can tell that they are not hearing a narrative that inspires confidence in RIM's future.
If you have time it's worthwhile watching two recent interviews on BNN. One is with an industry analyst from IDC (Brandon Mensinga) and the other is with a financial analyst from Jefferies and Company (Peter Misek).
(sorry the videos aren't embedded, BNN doesn't offer that ability - very annoying, but what can you do).
Anyway, both Brandon and Peter gave great interviews. But as you can see, industry analysts focus exclusively on the technology. As such, they tend to be more open minded about various possibilities a company could pursue to get back on track. They are use to an endlessly shifting tech landscape and are weary of calling someone down for the count until it's abundantly clear they actually are.
When you listen to Brandon, you get the feeling that RIM shouldn't be counted out just yet.
The financial analysts tend to be more concerned with operations and execution and the question of 'why' a company got itself in to the mess it's in and whether the variables that created the mess are still present or whether they have been addressed.
When you listen to Peter you get the perspective that RIM is all but sunk (I share more Peter's view myself).
What's interesting is that you can see how complicated relationship management gets with various stakeholders. You wouldn't connect Brandon with the same people that you would connect Peter with internally at RIM. Brandon might talk to a Senior Director of Software Development while Peter would probably talk with the CFO or CIO.
And yet, your job as a communicator would be to ensure that despite each speaking with a different person within the company (and each focusing on different facets of the company) that they both walk away with the same 'impression' of RIM's situation.
This is why PR goes beyond simply writing news releases or Tweeting. It's really a very complex art of relationship management and servicing a wide-range of information requests (which is why a good PR person ends up knowing every little detail about the business they work for). When done properly you get all kinds of different stakeholders saying the same thing (because they've all been exposed to the same story - whether they spoke with someone from R&D, finance, or marketing).
Companies tend to get themselves in trouble when they understaff their PR department (media relations, investor relations, analyst relations). And trust me, it's very common - I'd argue 90 per cent of companies understaff their PR departments.
When they tend to view PR as simply writing a news release and managing in-bound media calls. This results in stakeholders basically not getting the tailored messages that they should be getting - where the company's story isn't told to various stakeholders within the context of their preconceived notions.
This is why when you are in a company you have to develop internal relationships with your engineers, marketing folks, and even the finance guys. You can't sit in an ivory tower firing out news releases here and there (even though news releases are a high priority activity, don't get me wrong). You need to leverage expertise from across the business to manage your external stakeholders.
As you can see from the videos, you can't engage with Peter the same way you would with Brandon, they each have a different notion of the issues that are important and require different experts internally to satisfy their desire for clarity and insight.
It's not hard to begin to understand why a lot of PR folks work 70 hour weeks. It's also not hard to begin to understand how a PR department can become swamped and unable to manage relationships effectively.
I continue to say I think a lot of RIM's problems are tied to marketing and PR and when you hear thought leaders talk about RIM (such as Brandon and Peter) you can tell that they are not hearing a narrative that inspires confidence in RIM's future.
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