I’m Ai, in charge of public relations of Goalous editorial department.
PR staff often gather information such as press releases, newsletters, on-demand media, and others from within the company and send it out.
The hardest part is finding the internal material.
With more and more companies adopting telework nowadays, many PR professionals may feel that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find stories.
In this article, I would like to introduce the reasons why we are chronically short of material and what we can do about it.
Why PR is running out of material: Employees don’t know what information Public Relations want
Employees outside of PR don’t know what kind of information is needed for PR.
They think, “Public Relations is sending out information to the outside world, so all we need is big stuff, like new product releases.”
However, I would like to say this out loud.
We at PR want all kinds of information about our company, no matter what it is!
Even if it’s just a small story from an employee’s point of view, from a PR perspective, it’s helpful.
“If I write about it from this angle, it’ll be a hit with the media! ”
“This information can be used in our own owned media! ”
“This information can be used in our own owned media!”
Every information is the seeds of great content.
It’s up to the PR department to decide how to prepare the collected information.
The first step is to organize and share the information that PR people want, and create an environment where it is easy to obtain information.
Why PR is running out of material: Internal information is too closed
I’ve heard stories of Public Relations looking for stories but not getting the information they need, or getting it so late that they miss the release date.
This seems to be the case with companies that do not have good horizontal cooperation among departments and divisions.
When information is closed, it becomes difficult to get the information you need when you need it.
It’s very frustrating for a PR person to miss out on a story and find out about it after the fact!
To prevent this from happening, it is important to build relationships with internal members.
(Actually, it would be very helpful if the organization had good horizontal and vertical cooperation and was open. )
Why PR is running out of material: PR activities are not being recognized
Do you share the content (or media coverage) that you create after collecting stories within your company?
It’s a waste if you just get the story and that’s it.
If you don’t know how the information you have shared is being used, you will not know why you are providing the story to the PR department, and your employees will become uncooperative.
Let’s promote our PR activities as much as possible.
“My story is helpful for company PR!”
Employees will become more and more cooperative if they know that their stories are being used in right way.
Using IT tools to efficiently gather internal stories
Now you understand there is some reasons to shortage of PR stories in your organization.
Next, how do you actually gather internal stories?
Here’s an example from Colorkrew, the company I work for.
We post our daily activities on “Goalous “, a social network type goal management tool, and share them with the whole company.
By checking these posts on a daily basis, I’m
able to pick up stories that are hidden within the company.
If you think that it is too much work to check the activities of all the employees frequently, don’t worry! No problem!
We post on Goalous with pictures like a social networking service.
Goalous is like a social networking service that posts pictures, so unlike a simple business report, you can quickly and easily check the status.
You can also leave likes and comments, so if there is information you are interested in, you can ask for more details in the comments or check with the contributor separately.
From here, I can create releases and newsletters for the media, have employees write articles for the owned media, and so on, leading to outer branding.
I also share my PR activities with all employees, so they gradually get a sense of what information is needed.
“Isn’t this a good story?” or “How about this information?”
There are many times when employees ask me, “Wouldn’t this be a good story?”
It’s like we’re all PR people. This is very gratifying!
So, Goalous is a goal management tool, but it can also be used effectively for public relations.
There is a 15-day free trial available, so please feel free to contact us first.
We are also holding a free organizational improvement seminar using Goalous.
