PR pros share their hottest takes, part 2

So many PR practitioners chimed in on Linkedin with their industry hot takes that we had to break it into two parts. Read on for brilliant (and occasionally head-scratching) advice on a variety of PR topics.

Amira Barger is professor of communications, marketing and change management at California State University.

Neutrality is not real, it’s another word for complicity, you must choose a side and plant your flag proudly.

Carmen Angela Harris is growth communications strategist at Signal&Noise.
Your “brand narrative” is collecting dust while real news passes you by. While you’re looking to perfect that polished brand story, your competitors are grabbing headlines with actual news that matters.

Erin Schmidt is founder & CEO of Lilypad Strategies.

The more “polished” your PR output is, the less effective it probably is. People crave authenticity, not perfectly packaged comms. Ditch the over-designed emails, robotic pitches, and formulaic social posts — if it sounds like a brand talking at people instead of a human talking to them, it’s getting ignored.

Alex Dudley is executive vice president, head of issues and crisis at MikeWorldWide.

Communicators say they want to be taken seriously as businesspeople and joke about being bad at core business skills in the same sentence too often.

Grace Williams is VP of client relations at PANBlast.

The most creative/original/extraordinary ideas aren’t always the best ones. Sometimes tactics > strategy.

Nicole Yelland is chief communications & strategy at The Hispanic Organization of Mortgage Experts.

Stop pretending that the executive quotes you’re using are “in their voice,” especially in earnings-related material. The only voice I can hear is that of a robot trying to soothe investors’ nerves. Want to be real? Use words that sound like a real person talking practically about the business.

Chris Chiames is chief communications officer at Carnival Cruise Line.

Not a fan of “storytelling” as the leading skill for PR. The profession is called public relations for a reason. And while AI is changing how we work and how the media operates, our ultimate value is based on our working relationships and credibility with colleagues, executives and external stakeholders.

Shannon Tucker is vice president at Next PR.

Pay to play works.

Jessie Spielvogel is a communications consultant.

Some PR folks are too afraid to admit that they don’t always know the answer, and they will refuse to experiment because something hasn’t typically fit their comms strategy. Sometimes throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks IS a strategy.

Sarah Smith Banks is head/VP of global employee comms at Yahoo.

If your employees don’t understand, trust, or buy into the company’s direction, your external narrative is a house of cards. Layoffs? Strategy shifts? Exec departures? If you don’t control the story internally, it will control you — through leaks, bad Glassdoor reviews, or viral LinkedIn rants. The biggest reputational risks aren’t in the press; they’re in your Slack channels.

Jacob Streiter is vice president at Rosen Group.

There’s too much focus on finding that perfect pitch, that perfect idea, that perfect strategy. Rather, what I’m more interested in — and what I find more effective: putting competent, accountable people in charge of the project at hand, and giving them the space — along with the right kind of support — that allows them to take ownership, experiment, take risks, pivot accordingly and use their best judgment to get results.

Sarah Borek is associate director of external communications at OCC.

Staying silent does not make you neutral or unbiased; it is a conscious choice and conveys a message whether you like it or not.

Ketaki Golatkar is founder and CEO of Good Day PR & Strategic Communications.

Your biggest asset isn’t media relationships, a killer press release, or even your crisis management skills – it’s your ability to say “no” to bad ideas from leadership.

 Lauren B. Worley is communications director for Tampax, feminine care at Procter & Gamble.

In my “PR” career, it’s a great accomplishment to make a bad story better than any of the “good stories” I got published.

That’s harder to capture on a performance review, but arguably more valuable to the overall reputation of your organization.

Daniel Ventresca is account director at Matter Communications.

ChatGPT et al should be treated like poison in PR. If a reporter wants to read AI-generated insights, they can query it for themselves. PR people need to facilitate human-to-human interactions and insights that AI cannot replicate.

Matt Kelly is a communications strategy consultant.

PR agencies are being gutted by private equity, merged and stripped for parts until they’re indistinguishable vendors selling “arms and legs” instead of strategy. Meanwhile, management consultancies — already advising the C-suite — are poised to absorb the best talent, turning PR into an as-needed contractor model. In 3-5 years, agencies that can’t prove they offer more than press releases, influencer middle-manning, proprietary widgets, and media lists will be squeezed out, leaving PR as a bolt-on service for firms like McKinsey and Bain while in-house teams take on more. The great hollowing out of PR agencies isn’t new, but it’s accelerating beyond our ability to course correct.

Darlene M. Wilber is a digital marketing freelancer.

Being “too authentic” can kill a brand. Transparency might seem refreshing, but it can expose flaws that turn customers away, shake investor confidence, and create unnecessary crises.

Nicholas Holland is public relations account supervisor at Edelman.

Marketing should report to communications in an org chart. Comms understands marketing better than marketing understands comms. And at the end of the day, marketing is a channel to communicate with audiences. 🤷‍♂️

Chris Cradduck is a partner at LDWW.
Communications firms (and marketing work overall really) should not be based on hourly rates because the client always loses. Budgets are spent too much on the process and not results.

Helen Zhang is head of communications at Tend.

No one cares about your “brand story” but every PR agency is promising them to their clients.

Camille Schmidt is head of corporate communications at Philo.

Your “PR activation” was likely too expensive and probably didn’t move the needle unless it was part of the cultural zeitgeist. Focus more on your relationships with media and being valuable to them, not just the shock-and-awe tactics.

Kelly O’Brien is vice president, global communications and PR at PDI Technologies.

Internal Comms > External Comms