Issues Management: News Rules of Effective Public-Private Partnerships

Actions speak louder than words.

The old adage is the basis for the “show, don’t tell” approach exalted by so many disciplines: writing, teaching, negotiating, communicating. But transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson noted the danger of taking this mentality to the other extreme when he said, “What you’re doing speaks so loud, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

Indeed, communications executives must perform this tightrope act every day, balancing between the need to demonstrate their brands’ core values through definitive actions, and the need to speak softly enough to hear when audiences “talk back.”

Of course, the need for this balancing act emerged for good reason: The loss of trust in traditional authority figures (CEOs, governments, etc.) empowered everyday people and NGOs, ushering in the rise of activist government. Thus is the nature of today’s communications beast, in which the invisible constructs separating public and private institutions (and internal and external audiences) have been dismantled. In their place are new prerequisites for success—and mere survival—in the modern business world: democratized communications, omnipresent messaging and decentralized networks of engagement.

Edelman CEO Richard Edelman hones these prerequisites even further to identify specific tenets that, when observed, facilitate success in an environment where so much depends on companies’ ability to partner with public, community-supported organizations.

• What you actually do is central to the ability to communicate.

• Rethink content and outreach based on how people think about, talk about and look for the things they need.

• Engaging influencers of all stripes begins by actively listening.

• Digital is social, and it rewards those who engage based on community rules.

• Inform the conversation; be quick and informal, and never deviate from truth and transparency.

• Every company is a media company.

• When people open the door, we must be there.

“PR has an enormous opportunity in a world of expression, where authority is dispersed, where trust is created through continuous conversation and where established media brands must share attention with blogs or consumer-generated content,” Edelman says. “Our challenge is to evolve from pitching to informing, from control to credibility, from one-off stories to continuing conversations and from influencing elites to engaging a new cadre of influencers.”

It’s a substantial to-do list, but communications executives can begin managing issues through strategic partnerships by considering the following best practices.

▶ Become an adviser on policy by partnering with active stakeholders. All organizations are part of bigger issues, whether it’s climate change, energy preservation, access to healthcare—the list goes on and on.

“This requires a new level of relationship with influencers such as NGOs,” Edelman says, advising execs to use research to discern attitudes of new and established influentials. “Influentials are thought-starters, and amplifiers are those who continue discussions, be they bloggers or mainstream media.”

Once attitudes and groups have been identified, the process of engagement around a certain issue begins.

“Involve those with a connection to the company/brand, including employees, shareholders, retirees, customers, suppliers and communities,” Edelman says. “Help people come together in a social network with opportunities for consumer-generated content and feedback.”

▶ Leverage potential partnerships to advance your position around issues, but be aware of the other side’s challenges. Partnerships with NGOs are ideal for elevating awareness of your company’s position on a particular issue, but it’s important to know the challenges that these potential partners face by teaming up with you. That way, you can anticipate snags and come to the table with solutions.

“We are known for our partnerships with large companies,” says Kira Marchenese, director of online communications for the Environmental Defense Fund. “Our philosophy is that, by working with companies like FedEx and Wal-Mart, we can make a lot of change, but we have to do it very carefully. One of the things that’s like kerosene on fire in the social media world is campaigns against big companies, but we can never take advantage of that enthusiasm that people have. Our campaigns would be something like, ‘Congratulate Wal-Mart for its new plastic bag policy’—you can see how that wouldn’t go very far.”

Therefore, execs need to be sensitive to this when considering social media as a good place for this type of partnership. That said, “Even with these challenges, there is this yearning to be part of the [social media] world,” Marchenese says. “We’ve had some modest success in our membership department. We communicate with our followers through social media channels. We have a really consistent presence, which is important.”

▶ Approach partnerships—and the subsequent communications/issues management—transparently, but be sensitive to political agendas. NGOs are faced with playing political games to meet their end goals; if, as the corporate partner, you over-communicate any aspect of your strategy, you will do more harm than good.

“In some cases, [complete] transparency isn’t best,” Marchenese says. “It doesn’t help our political strategy to tip our hands.”

In other words, play by another adage that’s well known in the poker world: Know when to hold ’em, and when to fold ’em.

CONTACTS:

Richard Edelman, [email protected]; Len Mafrica, [email protected]