How PR Professionals Can Engineer a Trust Turnaround Promoting Best Practices
Julie Wright, President, (W)right On Communications, Inc.It is not business as usual in the media industry. Some say we’re in a post-truth era. One thing is for sure: the role and truthfulness of spokespeople, the press and state-sponsored fake news has us all talking. And, it turns out, these controversies and confusion have had an enormous measurable impact on public trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer is an annual measure of trust across the globe including an in-depth analysis of trust in the U.S. and trust as it relates to specific sources—the media, CEOs, businesses, technical as well as academic experts, NGOs and more. This year, the Edelman Trust Barometer showed a crisis in trust in America—a deep plunge year over year akin to a stock market crash or the final scene in film Thelma and Louise. This is the environment in which public relations professionals are communicating today. The public’s first instinct is not to believe the information they’re presented with and to greet news articles, press releases, corporate videos and blog posts with skepticism, if not outright disbelief. 
So, here we are. The scarcest commodity in the U.S. right now is trust.This explainer is intended to help refresh and recommit PR professionals and those that they serve to best practices, to a vision of what good media relations is and is not as well as the crucial role that public relations best practices play in building or restoring trust. Let’s Revisit Media Relations’ Primary GoalsMedia relations strategies typically start with two high-level goals in mind.The first is to raise awareness of a brand’s story and messages with its target audiences through well-placed articles, features and other media mentions. Since earned media cannot be bought, unlike paid media (advertising), it is more credible—with the public and with Google too. Have you noticed that news articles in major media outlets have a much higher search engine ranking? That’s because the websites that they’re published on have a much higher search engine authority, so Google ranks them higher. (This cuts both ways: awesome when the news they contain is great, and terrible when the news is bad.) The second goal, which is critical to fostering trust over time, is to influence perceptions and preserve or build an organization’s reputation. This starts with ensuring the organization’s media coverage is accurate and fair, and it continues with proactive strategies to bring its excellent financial performance, corporate social responsibility program, product innovation or corporate culture to life.The pursuit of these goals can help ensure that those long-lasting, high-ranking news article search results aren’t the cringeworthy ones, and that you, ultimately, maintain your organization’s trust with your stakeholders (customers, employees, constituents, vendors, partners, patients, donors—whoever you need to keep onside in order to operate effectively). In short, our first goal is to get the brands we represent into the media spotlight and our second goal is to ensure, once they’re there, that they’re lit to show their best side so that their audience applauds their behaviors and decisions, or at least understands them, rather than throwing tomatoes. Along the way, we apply media relations best practices: knowing what’s newsworthy, building good media relationships and being authentic, timely, accurate and transparent. Truth Can be Hard But it’s Not NegotiableWe are also ethical. As members of the Public Relations Society of America, we uphold the society’s professional code of ethics (PDF). This means that we are advocates for our clients and respect their confidential or privileged information, while also being honest, accurate and truthful in our representations to the public. We take responsibility for the authenticity of the information we represent in our communications and outreach.And it’s not an easy task. Public relations is consistently ranked as one of the top 10 most stressful jobs in America. And it’s not often a thankful task to be a spokesperson when the chips are down or the heat is on. But, here’s the point of this refresher. Ethical PR—transparency, accuracy, authenticity and timely communication—is what builds trust. And trust matters. It has an ROI, and there’s even a name for it: brand equity. When brands and people are trusted, they’re valued. When things go wrong, trusted people and brands get the benefit of the doubt. When you look these benefits, an investment in media relations best practices makes incredibly good sense. So, encourage the decision makers and leaders you work with to hold strategic communications to the same high standard as you do and explain that the public will hold your brand in a higher regard if they do. When the public trusts you, business will not only be better. Your life will be better. Stand up for standards.
Julie Wright Is the president of (W)right On Communications, Inc., an integrated strategic communications agency with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Vancouver that she founded 20 years ago this year.
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