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Pamala P. Proverbs, Ph.D., MBA, APR, ABC is the managing director of PRMR Inc. She is a recent instructor and graduate of the College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida. A career public relations practitioner of over twenty years, she approaches her scholarship pragmatically. Her research interests include corporate social responsibility, crisis communications and issues management particularly related to gender and development. In her role at PRMR Inc. she has written several strategic communications and crisis management plans for companies in a number of sectors including the private, public, multi-lateral and non-governmental sectors.
I ask myself everyday why did I fall in love with a profession that most businesses take for granted, some executives think hairy fairy and others don’t really understand what the hell it is about but are the first to scream, “We Need PR!” in a crisis.
People invest in companies with the ultimate goal of making a return on investment (ROI). Traditionally, responsibility for the company’s ROI was the expressed mandate of sales and
marketing. Today however, all the company’s business units are being called to account for
the company’s profitability, whether in the form of budgetary control, research and
development, public relations or some other strategy.
I was tempted to name this blog, ‘PRMR Inc. has rebranded’ but restrained myself because despite my excitement and admiration of our new spruced up logo, a logo change does not a company rebranding make.
As a business owner, or even as a one or two-person communications team, it is difficult to find the time to develop new ways to keep your company top-of-mind and help make it grow.
Most times we pound the pavements depending on sales to grow the business but no one wants to spend their hard-earned money with a stranger.
When I saw the title “For Immediate Release - Do’s and Don’ts for Managing Embargoes” on the Bull Dog Reporter email it immediately took me back to the time I tried my first embargoed piece in Barbados. Embargo “is the tactic of distributing news to reporters before a public announcement, with the understanding that the outlet won’t run the story until a specified day and time.”
A big part of what we do at PRMR Inc. is social media and online reputation management. Our mantra is that we have to do our own social media marketing well as a model for our clients.
Since hiring a dedicated online/inbound marketer we have been paying even closer attention to our performance. Recently we noticed that our Twitter Page has been out performing our Facebook page considerably.
The Pew Research Institute reckons that two thirds of American Adults are social media users. At first the social media platforms were used to form communities. Companies however quickly started to infiltrate these communities with advertising and triggered a change in the nature of social interaction.
In PRMR Inc.’s second podcast we discussed the role of public relations in the digital age. I felt a sense of déjà vu as I discussed some of the concepts because I remembered similar discussions on the role of PR in the broadcast age, when radio and television started demanding greater accountability from companies. The Internet, especially social media has intensified the pressure on companies to be responsive to customers and more importantly, be good corporate citizens.
It is probably one of the first things on the To Do List of persons reaching age 50 in Barbados.
As a matter of fact, if Barbados itself were an individual, it would probably be logged on to
the Barbados Association of Retired Persons (BARP) website right now signing up for membership.
Have you ever seen 10lbs of public relations? Or, have you ever touched stakeholder engagement? How about a good reputation? Can you physically carry goodwill to the bank, although thankfully nowadays it has made its way onto the balance sheet?
