This week in PR (8 May)

News in brief

• ‘The US government has been the least impressive in terms of its response to the pandemic, while the governments of New Zealand and Germany impressed the most’ according to a PRovoke survey among PR practitioners.

Huge congrats from @LansonsLatest to alumni @carriesymonds (and her partner too, of course) on the safe birth of Wilfred, it seems a long time since those days in our Public Affairs team…

— Tony Langham (@TonyLangham) May 4, 2020

Academic, education and training

Covid-19 comms

Google Maps is doing a good job of reminding me how exciting April was: (cc @PanaMarkides) pic.twitter.com/q4N7M4dIvn

— Oliver Brett (@OliverBrett) May 7, 2020

• Niki Tibble: Should you be blogging right now? (7 May)
  ‘While I think blogging is important for businesses at all times (and especially now), there are reasons why you don’t want to or shouldn’t blog.’
• Ben Smith with Amanda Coleman: The UK government’s communications performance since Covid-19 crisis kicked off [podcast] (7 May)
  ‘You would hope that when a crisis hits you’d planned and prepared. But the scale and complexity of what they’re dealing with is massive.’
• Danny Rogers: This crisis brings ethical purpose to a critical juncture, meaning tricky calls for bosses (7 May)
  ‘We finally arrive in the age of multi-stakeholder relations; where companies and leaders really must walk the walk, as well as talk the talk.’
• Helen Deverell: Jacinda’s communication masterclass (5 May)
  ‘It shouldn’t really be a surprise that New Zealand’s Prime Minister is giving the world a masterclass in communication. She completed a degree in Communication Studies in Public Relations and Political Science, and she’s had to deal with a fair amount of crisis comms in her short tenure.’
• Tim Johns: Zoom fatigue (5 May)
  ‘My view is that video calls are good for some types of meeting but not all. They’re good for debating specific issues amongst small groups, say up to ten. And, of course, they’re great for social huddles. But for everything else they can be suboptimal. For general meetings conference calls can be more effective. There are fewer distractions. One idea is to start the meeting with a video cameras on so that everyone can say hello, and then turn all cameras off.’
• Stephen Waddington: Lockdown letter: Zoom fatigue, checking in with Maslow and future plans (2 May)
  ‘A lockdown book or new language may be a tall order but there is pleasure in art, cooking, craft and community.’

Purpose and professionalism

• Laura Sutherland: Company culture – the glue that holds the organisation together (5 May)
  ‘One area PR professionals are called in to change culture, is when a new CEO takes over. The legacy the last CEO has left isn’t always a great thing and each CEO will want their own style of leadership to help inform the culture.’

Consulting, teams and careers

This is the most common issue from my 2019 study of this. Agency pay is lower than in-house pay & therefore skews younger. Additionally, people want worker bees. That's the agency model. A successful 50-year-old communicator is not going to spray & pray.#PowerAndInfluence

— Julia Angelen Joy | Public Relations Strategist (@JuliaAngelenPR) May 6, 2020

• Hatty French: What’s it like to start a new job during a global pandemic? (6 May)
  ‘Fortunately, the Battenhall team has been preparing, albeit unknowingly, for this new normal since its inception. The company has been practising flexible and remote working since it started in 2013, making the transition surprisingly smooth.’
• Ben Smith: Crispin Manners and Richard Houghton, co-authors of ‘Grow, Build, Sell, Live: A Practical Guide to Running and Building an Agency and Enjoying It’, talk about the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for PR firms [podcast] (5 May)
  ‘I think that agencies need to plan their approach around three phases. Life with Covid; life alongside Covid; and life after Covid. All three of those will need to have a strong online, virtual component.’
• Harry Shackleton: 5 things the Covid-19 crisis has taught us about successful communications agencies (5 May)
  ‘Every agency leader knows they run a people business, but too many still treat their people like commodities.’

Public and third sectors

*LOCKDOWN LAUDATIONS*
Episode 13
Today we visit North Yorkshire to celebrate the work of the excellent @andy_carter #LockdownLaudations @LGAcomms @LGcomms @SimonDJones @frannycoll @Eleri_R @CormacS63 @LGcomms @ciprlps @InterimBoy @philjewitt pic.twitter.com/73tWNCto8s

— @comms2point0 (@comms2point0) May 7, 2020

• Dan Slee: COVID COMMS #10: This is what you need to know right now about recovery comms (8 May)
  ‘There is no map. Anyone expecting to be spoon-fed is in for a shock. But bright communicators can draw on some basic principles and make an absolute difference.’
• Andrew Kirby: Homework: my values (3 May)
  ‘Defining your values is much harder than you’d think, and it takes much longer than you’d think. And it comes with problems. Once you’ve done this, once you’ve publicly professed what your values are… if you then monumentally break one of them, you’ll beat yourself up ‘til you find a way of making peace with it.’

Politics, public affairs and public sphere

• Alison Clark-Dick: Celebrating VE Day (7 May)
  ‘Let’s celebrate VE Day, acknowledge the sacrifices so many made then by ensuring we continue to make sacrifices of our own now. This is an opportunity to bring the generations closer together – they did it for us, now let us do something for them.’

Risk, crisis and reputation

We published a second #CrisisComms guide earlier today. This focuses on communications debrief & review during the #COVID19 crisis. Thanks to @amandacomms (featured in the video) for leading the report by the LPS committee & its advisory group. https://t.co/8WQKVSGb33 @CIPR_UK pic.twitter.com/f4p3YbMDdX

— CIPR Public Services #stayhomesavelives (@ciprlps) May 7, 2020

• Amanda Coleman: Ready, get set… (6 May)
  ‘Recovery communication after a crisis leaves little room for error and there is no manual to tell you exactly what to do. It is why I have written a Recovery Communication Readiness Assessment guide that will hopefully give those working in business continuity, recovery, resilience, and communication some prompts about what they need to be considering at this difficult time.’
• Sheena Thomson: Reading the small print (5 May)
  ‘With the Coronavirus pandemic, many businesses making a claim against their business interruption policy clause have had their claim declined, with any references to a pandemic virus defined as separate to contagion causing business interruption.’
• Tom Opper: Reputation Success and Disasters in the age of COVID-19 (1 May)
  ‘Over the years, how a business treats its customers and staff has become an increasingly important aspect of their employer brand, corporate profile and company reputation amongst today’s ethically-conscious consumer base, and the public has been quick to make its voice heard on companies they feel have fallen short in this regard.’

Brands, storytelling, and influence

• Scott Guthrie: Influencer marketing is dead. Long live influencer marketing. (1 May)
  ‘The media tend to treat the subject of influencers as one amorphous blob. A standardised, commoditised, one-size-fits-all entity. Celebrities, subject-matter experts, creators, reviewers, gamers, micro-influencers, nano influencers, bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers… all are clumped together; heaped into a single pile.’

Internal communication

Wow, hats off to @Airbnb CEO for delivering such a tough message in such a human way. They sound like an incredible company to work for and hats off to the measures they’ve provided for staff made redundant. I think the transparency in this letter will https://t.co/UXZ0JZpIws

— Stephanie Clark (@stefclarkx) May 7, 2020

• Nick Helsby: The silver lining of deeper employee engagement….and other stories of humanity (5 May)
  ‘From what I am hearing, leaders are much more attentive to the psychological welfare of their employees, and they have, in many cases, stepped up to and gone beyond their duty of care responsibilities. Companies are showing that they are only human after all.’

• Kevin Ruck: Listening helps wellbeing (5 May)
  ‘Recent research conducted with Mike Pounsford and Howard Krais has led to the development of a new ‘spectrum’ of listening practice which shows how organisations can enhance their listening strategies.’

Technology, media and digital

Former @guardian editor-in-chief @arusbridger named in first 20 members of #Facebook’s independent ‘Oversight Board’ https://t.co/5orv8m7AL8

— Michelle Goodall (@greenwellys) May 7, 2020

• Orlagh Shanks: Is TikTok the New Instagram? (6 May)
  ‘What a time to gain popularity – at a time when people don’t have much to do in isolation. The TikTok app reached its 2 billionth download last week, making it the most downloaded app of 2020.’
• Daniela Hamill: Artificial Intelligence in PR and the new wave of PR pros (no date)
  ‘As someone who is just starting out in PR, being told some of my current account executive roles will be automated or non-existent in the next half a decade wasn’t the nicest thing to hear. It did give me a ‘well why am I here?!’ moment.’
• Will Hobson: Newsjacking- How this strategy drove authority and over 250 links for our client in 6 months (4 May)
  ‘Here’s how we landed over 250 links on the likes of The Guardian, Independent, CityAM, Mashable and more using newsjacking, and drove a 288% increase in organic traffic in just 6 months (and 92 links built during the COVID19 pandemic).’