Good Performance in Delivering Products and Services
The survival of an anization, rather the well of it is determined by the nature of the organization’s relation with the media. The media relations of a company play a crucial role in gaining the trust of the public and most importantly the stakeholders (Supa 2014). It can be said that the nature of media relations of a company decide the long-term wellbeing of an organization. Corporate social responsibility is said to have a crucial role on the outlook of the company (Walker and Dyck 2014). If the company is seen to be taking care of CSR, the media will highlight their efforts. Being unable to do so or any unfavorable rumor will be treated rightfully by the media which can lead to damage of the company’s reputation. It comes down to the company’s media strategy that determines their relation with the media (Young 2014). This paper will enumerate the importance of media relations, ways to improve the media relations and the procedure to socialize the media relations while handling negativity.
It is true that the media relations of an organization determines their wellbeing in the long run. The activities taken up by the company, the methods applied by the company to treat matters and most importantly how they treat the consumers determines the relationship that the company has with the media (Malthouse et al. 2013). There can be instances when a company’s products or services is well received. This leads to appreciation in the consumer community. A satisfied customers acts as a medium of spreading healthy information about the company. Word of mouth is said to be taking place when an individual recommends a product, service to some other individual (Berger and Iyengar 2013). Satisfied customer are said to spread word of mouth through which the company can gain the support of additional individuals (Eisingerich, Auh and Merlo 2014). However a customer who is unsatisfied with a product or service offered by the company can spread negative word of mouth the degree of which is much more intense that its positive counterpart. Unsatisfied customers often turn to social media for venting out their grievance. It can as a result of bad experience with the product or bad customer service. There was an instance when the KFC received huge amount of criticism after a customer found a rat in their fried chicken (Pal, Chua and Goh 2017). The customer uploaded a picture of the same and it went viral on the internet. Additionally the media acted on this which led to a boycott of the company for a long period. This even made to the news which further damaged the reputation of the company. There are much more instances when the company failed to meet the standards they promised and faced the requisite treatment form the media.
Delegating People to Cultivate the Relationships
Good performance in delivering products and services that abide by the government regulations concerning the products and customer satisfaction, results in good reputation among the media and most importantly the customers. Good media relations help organizations in developing good relations with the traditional media (Grunig and Grunig 2013). Traditional media includes media platforms such as televised media, radio and print media (Dewan and Ramaprasad 2014). Advertising is the key to spreading awareness about a company’s products, services or initiatives (Alhaddad 2015). Good media relations enable the company to use the services offered by traditional media platforms. Unless a company is free from controversy or negative word of mouth, such media platforms will not let the companies use their services. The reputation of the media channel supporting such company’s initiatives could pose threats of loss of reputation and accountability of the same (Rokka, Karlsson and Tienari 2014).
The efficacy of a healthy media relationship is determined by a process that is considered complex. It involves the media relation strategy of the company, the affectivity of the personnel who work to maintain media relations and the most crucial role is played by the people of the media, namely journalists, reporter, editors of newspapers and the enterprises as a whole.
Delegating people to cultivate the relationships: In order to maintain better relationships with the media and the customer community, companies must hire people who are capable of looking into and managing media and customer relationships.
Establishing communication departments: Such departments can effectively monitor the information that is being spread regarding a company’s products or services. These departments within the companies can monitor the communication that is taking place between the company, the media and the customers.
Organize promotional activities aimed at developing healthy media relations: A company that has been under the hammer of the media as a result of the activities they performed in the past. Often, companies look to enhance their goodwill and move ahead of such negative influences. Such companies can choose to cultivate their relationship with the selected media platform and use the same to highlight their efforts to overcome the negative influences.
Create their own news: Companies who aim to develop their relationship with the clients and the media can choose to contribute activities that bolster their goodwill and reputation. It can be contribution to sustainable development or charitable acts aimed at welfare of the public through which the media can boosts the reputation of the company.
Establishing Communication Departments
In order to socialize their media relations, companies can choose to use a said media platform to spread awareness regarding the joint efforts or collaborations with a certain media enterprise. Companies can educate the community about their relations with their partner by announcing it on social media, or traditional media, include the same in their public journal showcase their collaborative efforts with a said media partner for a particular event. Coca Cola and Pepsi have collaborated their efforts in various events such as the FIFA World cup and others (Chadwick, Liu and Thwaites 2014). While doing so they have decided their media partners for the collaboration. Declaring media partners highlights the relation that the company has with the chosen media partner.
During operation, a company might face severe hindrance. Apart from the internal hindrances, the operations of company and its reputation face challenges in form the external environment as well. Negative rumors play a major role in acting as hindrances to the success of the company. It is a well-known fact that “rumor spread like fire” and negative rumors spread even faster. The method that is employed by a company to deal with a rumor further alters their relationship with the media and the community. The former should be tactful, respectful and responsible in dealing with the communication that is taking place between them and the company.
Applying tactics to respond: In order to respond to a rumor the company should not react or address the situation without planning. They should carry out intensive research regarding how to deal with the situation. They should also take hints from the past performance of the company and other companies.
Ensuring respect and responsibility: In the process of addressing the rumors, the company should be respectful in their operations. They should be aware of the components of the community and should thus be responsible and careful in addressing the rumors.
Conclusion
On a concluding note it can be said that the significance of media relations cannot be undermined. The nature of the media relations of a company can have adverse effects on the growth and goodwill of the company. Good media relations, imply that the company’s efforts are well received and appreciated by the audience. However failing to do so can result can result in adverse effects such as boycott of the products and services offered by the company and disapproval of the government bodies. It has also been opined that the company should make amends in trying to develop better media relations. The company can achieve the same by delegating people to cultivate the relationships, by establishing communication departments, by aiming activities aimed at creation of better relationships and by making efforts to create news by carrying out productive activities. The company can research techniques through which they can deal with negative rumors and should ensure respectfulness and responsibility while doing the same.
References
Alhaddad, A.A., 2015. The effect of advertising awareness on brand equity in social media. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, 5(2), p.73.
Berger, J. and Iyengar, R., 2013. Communication channels and word of mouth: How the medium shapes the message. Journal of consumer research, 40(3), pp.567-579.
Chadwick, S., Liu, R. and Thwaites, D., 2014. Ambush Marketing and the Football World Cup. In Managing the Football World Cup (pp. 63-81). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Dewan, S. and Ramaprasad, J., 2014. Social media, traditional media, and music sales. Mis Quarterly, 38(1).
Eisingerich, A.B., Auh, S. and Merlo, O., 2014. Acta non verba? The role of customer participation and word of mouth in the relationship between service firms’ customer satisfaction and sales performance. Journal of Service Research, 17(1), pp.40-53.
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Pal, A., Chua, A.Y. and Goh, D.H.L., 2017. Does KFC sell rat? Analysis of tweets in the wake of a rumor outbreak. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 69(6), pp.660-673.
Rokka, J., Karlsson, K. and Tienari, J., 2014. Balancing acts: Managing employees and reputation in social media. Journal of Marketing Management, 30(7-8), pp.802-827.
Supa, D.W., 2014. A qualitative examination of the impact of social media on media relations practice. Public Relations Journal, 8(2), pp.1-11.
Walker, K. and Dyck, B., 2014. The primary importance of corporate social responsibility and ethicality in corporate reputation: an empirical study. Business and Society Review, 119(1), pp.147-174.
Young, A., 2014. Brand media strategy: Integrated communications planning in the digital era. Springer.
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