by Genevieve di Leonardo and Neal Osti, College of Charleston
Scientists. Doctors. Engineers. Each of these professions has achieved credibility and respect as being experts in their fields. How do public relations practitioners gain this same credibility, for themselves and their clients, especially given the pressures inherent with today's Web 2.0 environment?
Peter Blackshaw, the executive vice president of Nielsen Online Strategic Solutions and the keynote speaker at this year’s conference, highlighted the importance of credibility in gaining loyal advocates as customers.
Blackshaw called attention to the deconstructive credibility gap that exists between marketing, PR and customer service: while marketing and PR maintain an open and conversational attitude, customer service often adopts the opposite mentality. This realization is extremely important given Blackshaw’s statement that “customer service is the new marketing.”
This is especially relevant today—in the new media age—when consumers have more control and the ability to create their own media and tell their own story, which may be at odds wit the story being told by the "official" brand outlets. Blackshaw’s new book says it the best: Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000. The internet provides an open forum for consumer feedback, magnifying and multiplying its impact on the brand, both positively and negatively.
“What really drives conversation, at the end of the day, is brand experience,” Blackshaw explained. This powerful influence drives practitioners to assess the value of what they are offering. He offers the example of what PR counselors can do to help companies become better at listening
rather than focusing so much on talking.
Blackshaw closed with a synopsis of the six drivers of credibility: trust, authenticity, transparency, affirmation, listening, and responsiveness and encouraged all practitioners to audit their efforts using these drivers to achieve a positive brand reputation.
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