COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
MEDIA TRAINING
Your project need not necessarily be controversial for the media to take interest, especially if they are being approached by unhappy stakeholders. You can prepare for this by ensuring senior executives have been thoroughly media trained so that they are comfortable with TV, radio and print interview.
By engaging openly with the media the stories that appear should be well balanced, fair and accurate. By ignoring the media and saying ‘no comment’ all you will do is hand the initiative to your detractors as the media will just concentrate on their side of the story
HOW BEST TO COMMUNICATE
Your plan must include various options by which stakeholders can communicate with the project team. Depending on the nature of the project the engagement could include
The second is reactive communications, responding openly and frankly to all approaches that have the potential to be damaging. These could include
• Intrusive questions from the media • Negative comments that are posted on ever-influential social media channels
• Direct action from pressure/action groups
Listed below are some useful tips when looking to manage stakeholder groups.
DEVELOP A PLAN AND AGREE KEY MESSAGES
Decide what you want to achieve from the engagement. Appoint a stakeholder engagement project manager, identify all key stakeholders and understand their concerns, set timescales for engagement, identify your key messages and keep repeating them.
Always be available, communicate regularly, if you don’t, others will fill the void with rumour and speculation.
• Public meetings • One-to-one • Specific stakeholder panels • Surveys • By email and social media channels
There are a range of techniques and skills that can be called upon to make each of the above engagement processes work well. Some are tried and trusted and based on common sense.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has opened up engagement to a level never seen before. Basically, every member of the public has the potential to be a ‘citizen journalist’. They can call upon Facebook, Twitter and Blogs to send out positive or negative messages. They can also use these channels to mobilise other members of the public. Inevitably, what is being said on the internet will end up in the mainstream media if the story is strong enough.
Social media will continue to grow in influence and importance and it is therefore vitally important that companies devise their own strategies which are based around full online engagement with stakeholders on Facebook, Twitter and other channels. They need to be having conversations online with stakeholders
and to see these as positive channels for communication. By doing so, they will win friends and influence people and events.
Finally, social media channels can now also be adapted so as to allow companies to build online portals that are devoted to stakeholder engagement. We have recently developed a portal that offers stakeholders a range of surveys to complete, has the opportunity for personal comment and updates on the project. It also has the facility for stakeholder access at different levels so, for example, the public get access to certain information and specific stakeholder groups such as MPs have access to additional material.
PLAN AND COMMUNICATE
Good community and stakeholder engagement is not a black art. It does need self belief and confidence to develop a strategy that upholds the principle that you engage in every conversation be it positive or negative. However, it is also the ‘right thing’ to do and, increasingly, companies recognise that they have to do the ‘right thing’ all of the time.
Daniel O’Mahoney Bradley O’Mahoney Public Relations
www.bradleyomahoney.co.uk
www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
27
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96