Lord Tim Bell, head of the U.K.-based PR firm Bell Pottinger, thinks so.

That’s what he told a crowd gathered in Dubai for the recent IPRA Public Relations World Congress and reiterated in an excellent interview with The Holmes Report.

Lord Bell is asked why he feels that public relations has become a “lightning rod for mistrust.” His response is intriguing inasmuch as it provides a nuanced view of a much broader issue afflicting the profession: its reputation within business and society.

Lord Bell sees “no solution to [the] issue,” of public relations’ reputation challenges, he tells The Holmes Report’s Arun Sudhaman, believing that “We [have] become the lightning rod for that mistrust. It is something we have to learn to live with. That makes us an easy target for the media.”

Lord Bell would know. As we have pointed out in this blog and in other forums, he and his firm have a way of attracting unwanted attention. Last March, PRSA wrote in The London Evening Standard that Lord Bell’s assertion that “everyone is entitled to representation so long as it does not involve doing anything illegal” should be placed in further context — that a public relations professional’s work also must not involve doing anything unethical.

Lord Bell found himself in further hot water back in December when his firm was caught in a row over allegations of surreptitiously editing clients’ Wikipedia entries. The ensuing firestorm set off a slew of industry hand-wringing. But in a bit of good news, it also helped bring forward some much-needed dialogue between public relations professionals and Wikipedians about the practice and ethics of “paid advocates” editing client’s Wikipedia entries.

(PRSA is hosting a panel on the relationship between Wikipedia and public relations professionals at its Digital Impact Conference, April 2–3, in New York.)

Those issues aside, Lord Bell’s point that the public relations profession has become “the lightning rod for mistrust” is not without merit. But how much of that is the result of Lord Bell and others reaping what they sow, and how much is manufactured by the media and certain interest groups?

Continue reading " Has PR Become a ‘Lightning Rod of Mistrust’? "

Last week, an opinion piece in Entrepreneur magazine by Dallas Mavericks owner and business mogul Mark Cuban asserting that startups “should never hire a PR firm” got the PR world buzzing. That guidance is part of Mr. Cuban’s “12 rules for startups,” which is featured in his latest book, “How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It” (Amazon.com review here).

Rule No. 11 states:

“Never hire a PR firm. A public relations firm will call or email people in the publications you already read, on the shows you already watch and at the websites you already surf. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them a message introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communication with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.”

PRSay reached out to Mr. Cuban to get his take on why he made this statement and for further insight into his thinking on the role and value of public relations.

PRSA: What prompted your assertion that startups should “never hire a PR firm”? Do you see PR firms and PR professionals not providing the right kind of value for entrepreneurs?

Mark Cuban: It’s not really about what PR professionals can and can’t do. It’s about prioritizing the use of limited resources available to a startup entrepreneur.

It is rare that an entrepreneur fully understands what is involved in putting a PR professional in a position to succeed. In order to be successful with a PR firm, [an entrepreneur has to] dedicate a lot of time to educating them on the startup. It requires quite a bit of time to interact with them and to make sure everyone is on the same page, and it requires quite a bit of follow up to create results. Although time is a critical resource in a startup, these aren’t even the biggest problems for most entrepreneurs.

The biggest issue is that very often, entrepreneurs, particularly those in their first startup, are looking for ways to offload responsibility for elements of their business that need to be core competencies of the entrepreneur.

If there is one element every entrepreneur/CEO must take responsibility for, it is sales. If you start a company and you don’t take full responsibility for selling your product or service right when you start, there is a good chance you are going to have problems. As the person at the top, you need to always be selling.

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Delegates to PRSA’s 61^st Assembly, and the second annual PRSA Leadership Assembly, turned their attention to the Society’s financial future as they met prior to the start of PRSA’s 2011 International Conference, “Imagine. Create. Inspire. Envisioning the Future of Public Relations,” in Orlando, Fla.

Following nine months of discussion and debate, Assembly Delegates overwhelmingly approved a proposal to increase PRSA’s membership dues by $30, not to exceed $255 annually. The proposal passed by a nearly 4-to-1 margin (209-to-53), with the increase scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2012.

Members who renew (regardless of their renewal date) or initiate PRSA membership by Dec. 31, 2011, will still receive one additional year of membership at the 2011 base membership rate of $225.

Discussion of the proposal lasted less than 10 minutes. Delegates appeared to understand the rationale for a dues increase, given the Society’s efforts to cut expenses and realize new sources of non-dues revenue, as well as the increased costs of business and the current economic climate.

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Editor’s Note: The excerpt below is from an op-ed by PRSA Chair and CEO Rosanna M. Fiske, APR, which was published Oct. 6, 2011, in the Harvard Business Review. A full version of the opinion piece can be read here.

Last month when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings hit “send” on his now infamous “I messed up” blog post and summarily announced the formation of the “Qwikster” business to run Netflix’s DVD network, a new chapter in botched crisis communications was written.

After more than 27,000 comments, significant customer backlash, and a startling drop in the company’s stock price, we can finally step back and discern several lessons from Hastings’ communications faux pas.

Chief among them is how business leaders can use strategic communications techniques to stop adding fuel to the digital-age fires. Throwing half-hearted apologies at an issue will just exacerbate a festering problem — and people will view it as an obvious and empty attempt to quiet the masses.

Case in point: Netflix’s 11th-hour blog post and apology video. While the CEO smiled throughout the video, customers rightly questioned its intention. Overall, the communications were vague, bizarre, and left customers wondering: “Are you really apologizing to me, or are you doing this because someone else told you to?”

Here’s where this crisis situation failed: Most reputation blows require a clear, strategic message, explaining two things: (1) what went wrong, and (2) what you are doing to rectify the situation. At the same time, remember to “stay above the fray”, as corporate communications expert Paul Argenti advises in The Financial Times. That is, don’t allow feelings of regret to cloud your best communications judgment.

Read the rest in the Harvard Business Review.

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As the culmination of PRSA’s 2011 Ethics Awareness Month, the PRSA Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS) hosted a special webinar (click here for the slide deck) Sept. 29, 2011, on social media ethics. Members of BEPS provided insight and training for public relations professionals on how the PRSA Code of Ethics can help determine the proper ethical course of action and protect their clients’ reputation and credibility when engaging in social media campaigns.

In addition to providing guidance on how public relations professionals can ensure their social-media campaigns uphold the ethical standards of the profession, BEPS members offered lessons learned from case studies of unethical practices in social media.

Continue reading " How to Avoid Common Social Media Ethics #Fails "