Be Picture Ready For Your Next Photo Op
As public relations professionals, you come to dread the cliché “grip and grin” photo opportunity which clients love. And why shouldn’t they?
Posts by:
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.
As public relations professionals, you come to dread the cliché “grip and grin” photo opportunity which clients love. And why shouldn’t they?
“You can’t punish me today because it’s International Day of Happiness,” says Karla, after I told her I was going to take off my belt because of the outstanding assignment she was working on. I thought that this was a ruse to get out of the bind she was in but nooooo, it really is international happy day.
Being a professional communicator, I have used Twitter lots of times as a communications tool. I promote it to my clients at PRMR Inc. because social media is important. You need to monitor and respond to your stakeholders, and you need to feed them information in the mode that they prefer. Yada yada yada.
I am an old fashioned Barbadian. What does that mean? Well it means I am really proud and believe in respect and dignity. It also means that I am not star-struck by anyone, not even royalty. In my job at PRMR Inc. and otherwise, I have met stars, authors, international politicians, heads of multinational corporations etc. and do not have a picture to show for it.
It’s no secret. The continuing unfavourable economic environment and increasing scarcity of financial resources have combined to make the attainment of corporate goals even harder.
In tough times like these, companies should be prudent in reaching out regularly to their stakeholders, and especially to their employees, with frank, open discussions on the state of their finances and their ability to stay afloat given the vast uncertainties that abound.
At PRMR Communications Consultants Inc. we have often had to deal with clients facing a crisis. In most cases, at both the individual and the company level, no one is quite certain how to discuss a controversial topic. Crisis communication is seen as scary and intimidating.
PRMR Communications Consultants recently attended the IABC World Conference in New York. Just before we left, everyone was buzzing about Facebook and the introduction of the #hashtag. Was this the move that would crush the competition from Twitter, Tumblr and other platforms? Or was Facebook losing focus?
PRMR Communications Consultants Inc. has long been an advocate for healthy lifestyles and wellness. We have a passion for health and as an organisation based in Barbados we are particularly aware of the problem of chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) facing the Caribbean right now.
Soft skills have become even more important today with the explosion in popularity of the various social media platforms.