When you become the Penny Sparrow of the PR industry

AFTER Penny Sparrow, there should be very few people left who are unaware of the dangers of the undisciplined use of social media. And, anyone who calls himself or herself a communications professional should be doubly wary of putting foot in mouth in cyberspace.

Public relations people (are they professionals? That’s perhaps a debate for another day…) are the very last people who should be saying anything on social media.

They represent clients and get money from clients whose brands can be damaged by association with a PR who is a loose cannon.

A good PR is someone who remains in the background and keeps his or her opinions to themselves.

That’s a lesson which appears to have escaped Jenni Newman, who runs a PR company and who boasts on her website that she and her staff enjoy good relations with the media. She also says, without irony or any form of substantiation, that she is “known as the doyenne of PR in South Africa”.

As a PR person (even a doyenne), you are starting down a very dangerous path when you start having a go on a public platform at the very media you wish to schmooze and from whom you wish to get coverage for your client. But Newman did when opining on a local journalists’ group on Facebook (how she got onto it in the first place is also perhaps a debate for another time): “Have you read the Saturday Star lately? That will really make you weep. There definitely has been subs but they sure ain’t there now!”

(The latter comment, in fairness, was Newman’s humourous attempt to join other users of the group in having a go at a post on the EyeWitness News website.)

Like all good slurs, it was a generalisation and accompanied by nothing resembling facts… And, without facts, Newman has tarnished the reputations and abilities of some of the better sub editors in the business.

I know this because I work with them. I know this because they have saved me from my own mistakes on a number of occasions. I know this because I see the copy they work with – before they polish it.

Sure, we make mistakes, but this is another in a series of short-on-the-fact attacks on various publications in this group by members of this Facebook group, bemoaning the imminent collapse of journalism as they know it because of our sins but blithely ignoring even worse ones in opposition papers.

Now if that all sounds like sour grapes, too bad.

The point I am making is that as a PR person it is not very clever to do that sort of thing to a newspaper (or a newspaper group, should we believe in “an injury to one is an injury to all”) in which you hope to get space for your client. Why on Earth would your client want to have its information in a publication which is so bad it makes the PR consultant weep?

And, by maligning the newspaper, you are effectively also saying that the people who continue to read it are contributing to a decline in journalistic standards. In other words, they’re also stupid enough to make you weep.

If I was a client of Jenni Newman Public Relations, I would worry a bit about that. Actually, I would worry a lot.

Also, the boast that you have good relations with the media is shown up for what it is: empty. If you did have good relations with us and you were concerned about something as important as editorial quality, you would be able to pick up the phone and chat to us.

That happens all the time. PR people I respect do not kowtow to me but if they have an issue they take it up directly. I don’t always agree with them but I do listen and, if we are in the wrong, we make amends.

Shouting your mouth off on a public forum is a public relations no-no. If I ever end up in the PR business (and clearly I won’t get offered a job at Jenni Newman PR) then it will be the last you hear from me. As a journalist I am expected to be an opinionated loudmouth. As a PR person I would be expected to be the mouthpiece for my clients, not myself.

Perhaps this Onion will help you learn that basic PR lesson, Jenni Newman…

Business is about making money and returning value to shareholders, isn’t it?

Many brands make the mistake of thinking that “reaching out” to customers ( current and potential) via social media, getting likes, shares and users on the various platforms, will somehow make people felt better about a brand. But,business is not about likes and shares – it is about selling widgets.

However, as the world becomes a tougher and more cynical place, consumers are beginning to demand that their brands do something to help the community, whether that is in putting money back into worthwhile social projects or acting ethically and with respect to the planet on which we live.

When companies show a commitment to move beyond a mere balance sheet accounting of their value to a country, they move beyond making money to making a difference.

That is the motivation, for example, for this company’s (Independent Media) recently launched # RacismStops WithMe campaign.

But I want to focus this week on how brands and companies can make a real difference in a crisis. This has just happened, and continues to happen, with the Operation Hydrate project.

Two days after the project launched, Mango airline came up with R500 000, then in came Dis-Chem and a host of other players, resulting in drought-hit towns and villages around South Africa getting millions of litres of water.

It was good citizenship of the type we need to see more of. I will definitely support a brand which puts society ahead of pure profit-making. So Orchids to: Mango Dis-Chem Foundation Star Air Cargo and Lanseria International Airport Bluchip and Willowton Team Telkom Bene water Thank you. If I left out your company name, let me know: I will put that right.