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Part 1: Why it’s time to humanise PR
How many times have we, as PR professionals, typed out the redundant greeting ‘Dear Editors’? After carefully selecting each email address that goes into the BCC tab, we then ruin our efforts by sending a blanket, impersonal greeting that immediately suggests a lack of care and attention. While digital communication has connected us like never before, it can also make us forget that we are sending contacting real people, and many of us have developed bad habits as a result. A BCC email saves time, but what does it lose?
I’m not suggesting that we send the same email and change the name at the top either. This is almost as bad as a BCC email, because in a world where relationships are more important than ever and where we want to be engaged on a human level, it is high time that we went the extra mile to humanise our own communication process.
During my PR career, I’ve learnt that every email, every phone call and every greeting is a building block in a relationship and a page in the story we’re telling. This isn’t limited to media relations but in fact goes beyond that to include our interactions with our clients and even our own colleagues. Before hitting send, dialling a number or attending a meeting, we need to think about the person we are talking to and how we can best establish a human connection with them.
As PR professionals, we are the masters of communication, and in the next part of my blog I will explore how we can put this to good use to foster meaningful, mutually beneficial media relationships.
Khaled Abu Hishme is Account Director at Cicero & Bernay Public Relations. An independent PR agency headquartered in Dubai and offering new-age public relations consultancy to the UAE and across the MENA. |www.cbpr.me