By J. Dean Spence
September 24, 2017
A while back, I was asked during a job interview to define a term I had used. I was caught off guard. I stumbled, badly, reciting for the interviewer the basic elements of a media relations program:
Step one: Create/gather research about your target audience Step two: Develop key messages Step three: Establish which news media to target and create a media list Step four: Create communication to send through target media to target audience
In my inveterate “bubble braindedness”, though, I thought, “Strategic media relations—you know, it is executing media relations…strategically!”
I could tell that I hadn’t told the interviewer anything he didn’t already know about media relations. He really wanted to know what I meant by putting the adjective “strategic” in front of “media relations”. That should have been an easy task for me considering that I had taken a strategic media relations course at graduate school.
In his Confessions, St. Augustine amusingly wrote words to the effect of “Time. I know what it is, just don’t ask me to define it.” Likewise, I know what strategic media relations, just don’t ask me to define it. But if I must, I would start by putting the word “strategic” into context.
Consider these definitions:
Mission: “A statement of [an] organization’s function in society, often identifying its customers, markets, products and technologies” (Crane et al, 2014).
Goals/Objectives: Goals are broad, general, intangible organizational intentions, and objectives are precise tangible or shorter-term measurable outcomes that accomplish the goals (Fleming, 2015).
Strategies: Broad statements or ideas that ensure the success of objectives (Fleming, 2015).
Tactics: are those specific actions that ensure the success of strategies (Fleming, 2015).
An organization, then, puts into place goals and objectives to help bring about its mission; it puts into place strategies to bring about its goals and objectives; it puts into place an action plan of tactics to bring about its strategies. An organization’s mission informs its goals/objectives, its goals and objectives inform its strategies, and its strategies inform its tactics.
So, Company X may have media relations strategies in place to develop meaningful relationships with journalists, but if the tactics the company uses include sending one press release to 100 different journalists at the same time, (a practice called “spray and pray” which is generally frowned upon by journalists) instead of selectively targeting a much smaller number of journalists, the company may be undermining its goal of being respected in its industry.
Strategic media relations, then, is simply executing a media relations program that is aligned with the mission and goals/objectives of your organization. If someone were to ask me what “strategic communication” is, another term I use frequently, I would use the same line of reasoning. It is executing communication processes in a way that is aligned with your organization’s mission and goals/objectives.
The real lesson here, though, should be obvious. Sometimes we use words and terms that on some level we understand, but when we have to define them we often can’t—without clarifying our hazy thoughts. And, hey, if that can happen to a towering intellect like St. Augustine, then it can surely happen to you or me.
References
Crane, F.G., Kerin, R.A., Hartley, S.W., & Rudelius, W. (2014). Marketing.
(9thCanadian ed.). Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.
Fleming, A.F. (2015). The Communication Plan. Fundamentals of Public
Relations and Marketing Communications in Canada. Edmonton, AB:
Pica Pica Press