From the Oxford comma to ‘don’t lie,’ these are guiding principles for PR pros.
We all have to be flexible about some aspects of our jobs.
But then there are the principles and concepts where you’ll never back down and never surrender.
We asked communicators on LinkedIn what hills they’ll die on in their profession. Nearly 300 people responded with answers ranging from the serious to the strategic to the very strong feelings about the Oxford comma.
This is a sampling of those answers, lightly edited for brevity and style.
Strategy, planning and agility
Kevin Lee is chief communications officer, Office of the City Manager at the City of Long Beach.
Scrap the comms plan if it isn’t working.
Flexibility and a willingness to pivot when the moment calls for it are greater strengths than sticking to the plan.
Brad Russell is a fractional communications strategist.
Is there a point to a comms “plan” anymore? You should have a communications paradigm/POV that helps dictate what you will/will not engage in … but a plan is obsolete by the second month. You need to be agile enough to inject yourself into a timely conversation.
Scott Gilbert is team lead, PR and multimedia at Penn State Health.
Tell me your end game: What does success look like? Otherwise, you don’t get a damn news release.
Clarity, simplicity and craft
Michael Williams is communications director for the Florida Department of Transportation.
There’s no reason to say utilize. Just use use.
Emily Kirchner is associate director, brand org capability development &operations at Whirlpool Corporation.
Say less.
Sarah Brown is founder & principal, Brighton Media.
Briefing books shouldn’t be novels.
Communications as a business function
Dan Mazei is principal at All Tangled Roots.
Communications is not situational, nor a tool. It’s a critical business function that needs to be part of core planning and execution, just like operations or strategy.
Kevin Pérez-Allen is senior vice president at Signal Group.
Almost no CEOs come from communications, and that’s the problem. Companies should be run by people who understand narrative and trust, as opposed to spreadsheets and process.
Gregg Feistman is professor of practice in public relations at Temple University.
If you don’t understand how business works, and how to connect PR efforts to supporting business goals, you’ll always be an order taker, not an order giver.
Newsworthiness and media reality
Michael Rowinski is vice president of communications at Mimecast.
When a press release needs 1,500 words to “tell the full story,” there is no story. You’re just hoping nobody notices.
Gabrielle Reitano is a PR consultant.
Everyone wants to be in the WSJ, the New York Times, Business Insider, etc., but your audience might not be there. They might be reading a smaller trade.
Sukanya Sen is vice president of global communications & PR at Urban Land Institute.
No, I can’t get you into The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, or “60 Minutes” just because we think it matters. Newsworthiness isn’t internal validation; it is about whether the audience cares or not.
MaryBeth Matzek is a freelance writer and editor.
No, you can’t see the story before it runs.
Media relations rules and myths
Andrew Wargofchik is director of marketing & communications at Epirus.
Agency pitches focused on “reporters we have strong relationships with” mean nothing. Strong story > lukewarm “friendships.”
Jen Nycz-Conner is senior director of global enterprise communications at Hilton.
An “exclusive” means one journalist and one journalist only. “Embargo” means multiple journalists who agree to a certain publication time. There is no such thing as a “print exclusive” or “trade exclusive.” “Exclusive” = one. Period. Paragraph.
Stephanie E. O’Neill is an SEO content & communications consultant.
There’s no such thing as “off the record.”
Measurement, amplification and realism
Joseph J. Nuñez is senior director of global communications at Smartly.
PR/communications should not be strictly measured by the same standards as other more quantitative marketing functions. The idea that certain KPIs have to continue to grow (e.g., we need 30% growth in media mentions month over month!) is both unrealistic and unstrategic. Some months you’ll have more earned media, others will be less. It’s the nature of the beast.
Cody Luongo is a media consultant.
You’re losing more the half the value of your earned press wins if you’re not repurposing and sharing them online via employee and brand accounts.
Credibility, trust and restraint
Lauren Roberts is a public relations and communications strategist.
PR dies when it chases attention instead of credibility.
Alejandro Ramos is a director, strategic communications at Hirsch Leatherwood.
PR is more about earning belief than earning coverage. If an idea can’t survive in a skeptical group chat, it can’t survive in the public.
Christine Kim is chief communications officer and founder of The ATTN Economy.
Stop optimizing for virality. The content that spreads fastest is almost never the content that builds anything real. If your communications plan starts with ‘how do we get eyeballs’ instead of ‘why would anyone care,’ you’ve already lost.
Julie Inouye is CEO at Outcast.
There are no shortcuts to building trust.
Audience-first thinking
Ellen Gerstein is former head of digital communications at Pfizer.
It doesn’t matter what we want to say. It matters what our audience needs to hear.
Lucy Screnci is a senior consultant, communications at Santis Health.
Not enough comms and PR pros are immersed enough in their industry in terms of reading and being able to contextualize news and developments for pitches and thought leadership.
Jessica Masuga is a content and editorial strategy consultant.
A good storytelling program can’t live on data, product claims, and thought leadership alone. People want to understand the humans behind the work and the humans impacted by it. If you don’t occasionally pull back the curtain to show that human element, you’re missing the point of storytelling.
Kerry Leslie is director of strategic communications at Upstream.
The “general public” is not a target audience.
Neither is “media”.
Internal communications and leadership
Kelly O’Brien is vice president, global communications and PR, at PDI Technologies.
Internal comms should be held to the same copy and creative standards as external.
Shannon Simpson-Peeling is a strategic communications leader.
Silence erodes trust faster than difficult decisions. Leaders owe people clarity, especially in uncertainty.
Carrie Goldstein is a communications consultant.
Your lack of planning is not my emergency … but I’ll still make it happen in the end.
Ethics, boundaries and professionalism
Yelena Tebcherani is senior director and head of corporate communications at Qualcomm.
You’re not obligated to answer every question — silence is a strategy, not a slip.
Usher Lieberman is a fractional communications leader.
I will not lie on your behalf.
Style debates and pet peeves
David Eckstein is a strategic communications executive.
The Oxford comma is for hacks
Anya Nelson is SVP and public relations practice lead at Scratch Marketing + Media.
The heated debate around serial comma is overrated
Allison M. Mackey is communications & brand manager at the City of Visalia.
Use AP style in public communications! In the trenches on this one.
Carole Barrow is vice president at Edelman Smithfield.
I miss em dashes — their mid-sentence emphasis — it’s just one of those irreplaceable pauses.
Kym White is chief corporate affairs officer at Generate:Biomedicines.
“Data” is a plural word.
Steve Saleeba vice president, media relations at Hollywood Agency.
No one cares that you are “excited” to announce anything. Using that language in a press release is a low key crime against humanity.
Chris Murray is EVP and partner at BTC.
PR is not a synonym for media relations.
Karen Murray is a communications director at Elysium Marketing Group.
PR does not stand for press release.
The post Communicators say these are the hills they’ll die on appeared first on PR Daily.
