Huffington urges PR pros to be moral conscience

A throng of seasoned professionals, ambitious college students, and savvy social media strategists gathered at San Diego’s Marriott Hotel and Marina on November 8 for the three-day Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) 2009 International Conference themed “Delivering Value.”

Arianna Huffington, the founder of The Huffington Post and best-selling author, gave a riveting keynote speech encouraging ethics in professional and personal life.

“Touching peoples’ hearts is so much more important than touching peoples’ minds,” she said, urging public relations practitioners to be the moral conscience for their clients and to “course-correct,” should ethics fall astray.

This year’s conference centers on the goal of building “The Business Case for Public Relations,” PRSA Chair Michael Cherenson’s opening remarks emphasized the urgency of establishing a positive perception and generating comprehension of public relations industry.

Elaborating on the take-home message of morals in the workplace, the conference provided the audience with a “twofer” keynote, in which Huffington interviewed Wendell Potter, APR, on this role of whistleblower on the corruption in the insurance industry. Potters confession of personal demons was intended to inspire public relations pros to maintain the course of ethics over a cushioned personal lifestyle.

Moreover, Huffington touched on the excitement of this journey of intervention in journalism and public relations, in which viral communication is rapidly disseminated in this digitized world.

“Consume old media sitting on the couch, new media is consumed galloping on a horse,” said Huffington who cited hip-hop star, Will I Am’s observation of the heightened engagement of virtual audiences and revolutions in information diffusion.

It is evident that 2009 will mark the year in which social media explodes on the consumer front, engaging consumers in conversation and creating brand awareness. In fact, Huffington urged the audience to continue the conversation with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Speaking to the proliferation of social media, Katie Paine of KD Paine & Partners provided the measurement tools to justify the upsurge of company spending on social media development. Paine opened her session by uncovering the numbers in favor of social media; a PRWeek release announced that 48% of respondents were moving funds from advertising to social media and 91% of Inc 500 companies are using social media.

Paine’s presentation was current and relevant to the cluster of questions surrounding social media, particularly in the realm of measuring success. Therefore, it was no surprise that the Marina conference room was jam-packed with social media enthusiasts, eager to establish a ROI report on their efforts.

While Huffington shed relevant insight and commentary on the profession, Paine provided concrete tools for professional development in social media. Social media is not just pertinent for public relations practitioners but serves a significant role in engaging relationships, spreading brand awareness, and may lead to meeting the bottom line.

For starters, Paine answered the fears behind social media and encouraged individuals and companies to be part of the conversation. Once engaged, Paine emphasizes he importance of measurement to justify social media practices, revise tactics, or cut programs all together.

Ultimately, don’t be afraid of social media, try it out, and then measure it. If it works, build your social media program, and if it doesn’t don’t keep doing it -plain and simple. The more complicated part comes with establishing goals for social media.

Paine provides example of goals for social media:

1.     Marketing/leads/sales

2.     Mission/safety/civic engagement

3.     Relationship/reputation/positioning

Once the goals are set, Paine recommends following the 7 Steps to Social Media ROI:

1.     Define the ‘R’ - what are expected results

2.     Define the ‘I’ - what’s the investment

3.     Understand your audiences and what motivates them

4.     Define the metrics (what you want to become)

5.     Define your benchmarks

6.     Obey the Rules

7.     Analysis

Taking action and engaging in conversation are the key goals to social media. Once engaged, there are numerous web analytic resources that may be used to measure social media programs such as Google Analytics, SocialMention.com, TwazUp, and so forth.

For emerging professionals in the public relations, the increasing momentum of social media, make expertise in this field an essential resume booster. Similarly, it is Paine points out the obsolete practice of counting eyeball or impressions, which is being replaced with consumer engagement.

Paine’s professional development session just one of the insightful career booster offered on opening day of the conference. Others include: “‘Let’s Talk Business:’ Independent Practitioners Share Advice for New and Established PR Practices,” “Leverage the Power of Pull: How to Make Your Brand More Digitally Discoverable,” and many more.

Additional information can be found at http://www.prsa.org/ic2009/index.html

Tags: arianna huffington, ethics, prsa, public relations, SDNN

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