Having a proactive public relations plan will save you a great deal of time and energy. Most companies only implement public relations after a crisis situation. Better late than never, but the early bird definitely gets the worm when it comes to PR. Here are some of the ways in which you can prepare your company up on with a media relations plan that is proactive.
– First of all, give a short list of public relations partners that you can trust.
Not all PR is able to be done in-house; you may need some help. The first thing that you should do is to identify the public relations companies that you can trust in case of an emergency. These are the companies with whom you can partner when everything goes wrong without having to waste time vetting unscrupulous companies.
– Second, have an online reputation management plan in place.
Many crises in the modern business landscape actually come from an online comment that was made by a disgruntled customer. If it is not this causing a problem, it is a negative search engine optimization strategy that a direct competitor has implemented on a company. Both of these can be handled with positive search engine optimization campaigns. The secret is to maintain a positive relationship with Google, Yahoo and Bing so that your positive press comes up first when a potential consumer searches for your company online.
Once this positive relationship has been identified and solidified, it is very difficult for a new website to break the trend. If a new website does break the listings quickly, you can rest assured that it will not have the impact that competitor thought that it would.
– Third, set aside funds for a public relations campaign.
You may have to take the word onto the street when it comes to getting your name back. You may have to hire an outside marketing or distribution company in order to get out flyers for free gifts to customers. Make sure that you have the money to pay these people so that there are no delays in your public relations program.
– Fourth, prepare a contest or another distraction to take attention away from any negative press.
You should not have to think up an idea that can serve as a distraction when a crisis hits. Think this idea up while you are sitting around the lunch table having some downtime when everything is calm.
