A Public Relations Podcast: Smoke Signal Episode 13 – modernising media relations

02/18/19 • 30 min

Smoke Signal, A Public Relations Podcast

Reports of the death of media relations have been greatly exaggerated.

According to practitioner and entrepreneur, Shane Allison, media relations accounted for 51% of agency revenues in 2018. As such it remains a core skill for PR professionals, but in many ways the way we practice media relations has not evolved from when we used fax machines to reach journalists.

Shane has launched a new platform, Public Address, bringing much needed innovation and technology to improve the practice of media relations and help remove the friction that can exist between PR practitioners and journalists.

In this episode, Shane supports the view of David Skapinker in Smoke Signal episode 8 that there are now more journalists and media outlets than ever before.

As a profession we’ve gone from interacting with 2500 media outlets in 2013 to nearly 5000 media outlets today. In the same time we’ve seen nearly 1000 journalists added to the population of journalists.

As Shane puts it: “You look at that explosion of media outlets you understand why the PR is struggling to meet the needs of journalists. There are so many different titles and outlets that we need to be communicating with, and pitching to, on a daily basis.

“As a result we have never been busier as an industry. The number of people employed in PR has doubled in the last 8 years... We are putting more and more resources to get the same impact as we would have done five years ago with a placement in mainstream media... So the net effect for the PR profession has been declining productivity.”

For Shane, the PR profession has often confused innovation with diversification. So we’ve innovated by diversifying away from media relations – we’ve introduced video, social, content creation, community management among other skills. But, in Shane’s view, that is now holding us back, we need to come back to our core and ask how we innovate in this core skill of media relations.

Shane is excited about what he sees as the imminent golden age of media relations in a time when media relations has never been more valuable for brands – the process can be improved and evolve but the discipline will remain at the core of what we do.

In the news
Earlier this month I attended the launch of the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer. In the news this episode I discuss three of the key findings:

Media is becoming more trusted than ever
Trust in social media as a source of news and information continues to be persistently low, especially in Australia
A trust gap has arisen between men and women – women are less trusting

Take a listen and you can view the full results here.

Reports of the death of media relations have been greatly exaggerated.

In this episode, Shane supports the view of David Skapinker in Smoke Signal episode 8 that there are now more journalists and media outlets than ever before.

In the news
Earlier this month I attended the launch of the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer. In the news this episode I discuss three of the key findings:

Media is becoming more trusted than ever
Trust in social media as a source of news and information continues to be persistently low, especially in Australia
A trust gap has arisen between men and women – women are less trusting

Take a listen and you can view the full results here.

Previous Episode

A Public Relations Podcast: Smoke Signal Episode 12 – Dr Happy

With it being that time of year when we are getting back to work, I thought it would be timely to speak to an expert about how we can stay positive as our holidays quickly fade into the memory.

Dr Tim Sharp has two great titles – Dr Happy and Chief Happiness Officer of the Happiness Institute. Tim is an academic, an author, an executive coach, a podcaster and a brand ambassador.

He approaches mental health and wellness from a positive psychology perspective – how can we all thrive and flourish.

The key to happiness is to make it tangible (what is happiness to me) and to have a plan of how you’ll get there (just like losing weight or saving for a holiday).

Hand in hand with happiness comes resilience. Because sh&t happens. No matter how happy you are, in the real world things happen that are outside of your control, and it takes strength to bounce back from these challenges.

The main attributes of resilient people: they keep looking at light at end of tunnel rather than losing hope; they take care of their physical health during the difficult times; they are positive; and they have strong relationships and ask for help when they need it.

Organisations can be happy too

One of the myths about happiness is it is just about feeling good; however, meaning and purpose are also important.

For organisations, a sense of purpose is vitally important for attraction, retention and engagement of staff. Research shows those organisations with purpose outperform.

And while Brand Purpose been the PR a buzzword in 2018, Dr Happy provides a timely reminder that a lot of these concepts have been around a long time – the language changes over the years but the main concepts have been consistent; what we are seeing is stronger research to support these concepts.

And as we await the findings from the Royal Commission into Banking, Dr Tim Sharp’s advice for the banks and other large institutions whose reputation has been impacted – get back to basic principles and values of purpose and trust. And most importantly, make sure the day to day behaviours of the organisation match these values.

The challenge: whether it’s a small PR firm with 10 staff or a big bank with 30,000 employees, creating cultural change is easier said than done as the reality is more complex than theory.

Next Episode

A Public Relations Podcast: Smoke Signal Episode 14 – The Financial Soulmate

Numbers, budgeting and forecasting are not normally the natural domain for PR professionals. However, if you’ve ever worked in an agency there is one thing we certainly know well – timesheets. But is filling out timesheets and billing our services at an hourly rate devaluing the work we do as a profession?

In this episode I speak to Financial Soulmate for creative agencies, Kathryn Williams, about a different approach to pricing: Value Based Pricing.

Timesheets are not unique to public relations. They are used by lawyers, accountants and management consultants just to name a few. However, according to Kathryn where we fall down in MarComms is we are generally not left brain enough to record our hours properly and take them seriously. But if this is the way we sell ourselves then it IS very serious.

Kathryn wrote this recent blog on Value Based Pricing that piqued my interest. At its core Value Based Pricing looks at what is the ultimate value of a piece of work for a client. It is about looking at what I am giving not what I am going to do and how long it will take. Instead of tracking hours or widgets you are tracking deliverables.

Timesheets are not necessarily broken, she says, they just need to be managed with respect.

The reliance on timesheets also hides the facts there are many other modes of pricing: time, commission, mark up, and Value Based Pricing would be another.

Value Based Pricing should cover your costs as well as recognise the value you are delivering to the client. Kathryn outlines three steps to implementing a Value Based Pricing approach:

Decide you are going to give Value Based Pricing a go;
Identify the metrics or targets that are meaningful for the client;
Assign a value (a price) to those metrics (this will be based on what will the market bear and your confidence).

Introducing Value Based Pricing has flow on effects across an agency. According to Kathryn a lot more agencies are now also hiring from the top down, staffing up based on demand. This fits with the uber-isation of the workforce where talent moves more often and more freely, particularly in our sector where freelancers are widely available. It becomes much more efficient to staff up from a strong pool of freelancers and that could be local or offshore resources.

Although it has been around for a long time this is very much a new space for many agencies. We are not going to see the end of timesheets, rather it should add and complement to the way we bill and ultimately make agencies more efficient and profitable.

Kathryn gives some great one-liners throughout the podcast, here’s a few of my favourites:

We are talking about how a firm manages its most important asset – its people.
We continue to give more away and not value ourselves.
It is about the ROI and the business outcome – not what we do; but rather what we achieve.
There are thousands of dollars a month left on the floor – look for ways to bill that properly or not spend not so long on the job if we have delivered what we promised.
Every member of staff should understand the impact of poor timesheets.

In the news this episode a brief discussion on the Public Relations Tech Ecosystem that I released earlier this month.

The technology underpinning the practice of public relations continues to change and evolve and this tool maps the technology ecosystem across 8 different areas of PR practice. It gives practitioners a starting point for what tech tools are out there and I hope it can be shared and added to as this is an area that will continue to evolve and change in coming years.