Benson Hendrix dot Com

With all of the talk of social media and public relations, something I haven’t seen much talk about is the importance of community building and coalition relations. Not “community building” in the sense of using a Facebook group or Ning site to connect online, but a real, face-to-face community relations ground game – one of the big pillars of a communications program.

A lot of public relations is seen as how to spin the media – what are we going to tell the press to get them off of our backs, or give our side of the story out of some kind of “fairness”? But if you look at the two root words of PR, public and relations, how can PR not be about working with members of the general public, which is the foundation for community relations.

Community relations is about developing connections with people who agree, and sometimes more importantly, disagree with your organization. It’s about building coalitions with people and groups that feel a connection to your organization, whether it’s a school (like UNM), a company (like Apple or Microsoft), a candidate (Barack Obama, anyone?), and creating a community with them.

Some things to consider are:

Are you looking beyond your “borders?” Too often we consider the people right next to us to be our neighbors or peers, without looking past them to other community or civic groups who you influence. They might be more understanding of your needs, should your immediate neighbors be unduly aggressive towards you.

Do you have any boots on the ground? By “boots on the ground,” do you have any organizations or groups in the community who are willing to lend support to your cause? People who are willing to advocate for you, work phone banks if necessary, hold or attend town hall meetings to speak on your behalf or share ideas? This starts to develop like a political campaign – who are your most important generals in the field? Who can you depend on to promote your story?

Remember to listen carefully. The old saying goes, “we all have two ears and one mouth in order to listen twice as much as we talk.” Listen to what your constituents have to say, and take it to heart. It might not be easy for you to hear, especially if you have upset your neighbors, but it’s important to look at things from their point of view. More often than not, these groups want to be listened to, to know that you are taking their views into consideration. (also, actively listen – take notes, take pictures if necessary, post them all online with your initial thoughts and ask the same people you spoke with to provide their input)

Who are you listening to? This usually comes up when you spend too much time dealing with your peers, whether you’re a PR person commiserating with others at the bar, or a CEO or board president listening only to your vice presidents or fellow CEOs. One of your most important community relations weapons is the old “Town Hall” meeting. (which we’ve all heard too much about over the summer) But not all Town Hall meetings are like the ones being stormed over by activists. You want to take the opportunity to meet your constituents, detractors and potential supporters and give them the chance to talk face-to-face with you.

Public relations and community relations really work hand in hand, without one the other becomes much harder. If you take the time to develop good relationships with your community – whoever that is – you may be able to develop better public relations than any standard “PR Plan” can come up with. What about you, dear readers? What advice do you have for people (candidates?) who want to improve their relationship with the local community? Like they ask in the World of Warcraft commercials, “What’s your game?”

(Picture is Church, Pie Town, New Mexico, courtesy of the Library of Congress and taken by Russell Lee)

Earlier (before taking some time off to turn the geezerly age of 36) I had started a series of blog posts dealing with the idea of using the elements of social media to create a plan that is unique to your company’s needs.  One of the keys to designing a solid social media plan (as well as a great dinner) is figuring out what you want to base your social media efforts around (the entrées) and what social media tools will serve an ancillary purpose (the appetizers).

You or your company’s needs will differ, which is why you need to plan before you start a social media (or any communications) program.  Too often there are manager, CEOs, CCOs, etc. who want to jump into a new communications model because they’ve heard about it in PR Week, or Fortune/Forbes/Inc., or they are solidly rooted in PR from the past. Press releases printed with carbon paper were good enough for them, and damn it they should be good enough for you.

Look again at the example of Iron Chef (where the idea for this came from). In Iron Chef, each chef is given the secret ingredient just before the competition begins, and has to come up with a number of dishes

While you look at the myriad kinds of social media available to you or your company, from blogging to podcasting, YouTube to Facebook and MySpace and Flickr and beyond, you need to look as each of these as part of that secret ingredient from Iron Chef. Then start asking some questions

What tools should be your main focus?  What do you want to devote a lot of your time and effort to?  Blogging?  Podcasting?  These are the equivalent of your entrees. When you consider what to focus most of your time on, think about who you’re trying to communicate to. Are you trying to create your own online media outlet?  Then you might want to center around a blog and use Flickr for images and YouTube for your videos.  If you’re a professional photographer and haven’t set up a Flickr account to show off your work, what are you waiting for??

Are you trying to reach out to younger people, maybe you’re a school or a video game maker. While MySpace has lost much of its luster in recent years, there are still over 70 million people on the social network. (and while Friendster is kind of a joke at this point, it’s still very big in much of the Asian Pacific Rim countries, do you need to reach that audience)

Then ask yourself, what other social media tools might help you achieve the goal of communicating with your target audience. Maybe you’re not in an industry that needs to use too many pictures – you can still use Flickr to show off community events, or record your yearly shareholders meetings with a podcast.  You are limited only by your imagination on how you can use these tools.

In Iron Chef the competitors only have 1 hour to complete all of their dishes.  Thankfully, you have more time to develop your plan – but if you haven’t started yet then your competitors have a three dish, five chef advantage on you.

As I work on a couple of new posts for y’all (yeah I know I’m late on these, took some time off to go to Phoenix, relax, and have my truck engine blow up on me) I wanted to ask a question of y’all.  One of the quotes from my presentation (and one that I think really strikes true) is from Albuquerque’s liberal political campaign expert Eli Lee.  (those of you at the Synerque presentation I gave a couple of months ago remember it).  I admire Lee and the work he does, even if he’d probably smack me in the jaw if we ever met (I don’t agree with him on all of the issues).

Now, I’ve paraphrased his quote to:

Multiple messages to multiple audiences via multiple media (sources).

But the original quote is:

Multiple messages from multiple messengers to multiple consitituencies.

From the new quote, it looks like I switched a few words around, but the intent is the same.  You want to get your message(s) out as much as possible to as many people as possible.  In this day and age of social media, you have more technological outlets than ever to get your message to everyone out there.

At the shiny hour of O’Dark:Thirty in the morning, what has left me pondering is the following.  Is it feasible to have “Multiple messages” when you are working as a communicator?  If everyone can check your blog/YouTube/podcast/Twitter feed/traditional communications outlets at the same time, will there be inconsistency between messages and how much of an inconsistency can there be?  All of your messages should come from one overarching goal, but is that enough?  Or will people look at your messages and examine the fine print for the slightest difference and try to hammer you on it?  And what will your response be?