Why the mass of news does not make much credibility?

How can public relations of companies go beyond the dissemination of managers' news and help build credibility and trust?

Ambassador Arjan - The names of some companies are seen in the media almost every day. The CEO visits the units, meets with officials, speaks at conferences, and PR turns all these activities into news. However, when we ask customers, employees, or market participants what makes a company stand out and why it should be trusted, we don't necessarily hear a clear answer. This situation raises an important question about the function of public relations, whether the continuous release of news alone builds credibility for the organization?

Al Reyes and Laura Reyes emphasize the role of public relations in the formation of a brand in the book "The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of Public Relations". According to them, people are skeptical of direct claims made by companies about themselves, but information received from other sources is more effective in forming their beliefs. This point of view is also important in examining the public relations of organizations, because credibility is not built by repeating what the company says about itself, and others must have reasons to accept it.

The difference between having news and having something to say

In a part of Iranian companies, the media activity of public relations is formed around the plans of managers. Meetings, visits and speeches become news, and the success of public relations is sometimes measured by the number of published materials. There is nothing inherently wrong with publishing this news, because managers are decision makers and representatives of the organization, and their behavior affects the reputation of the company. The problem starts when the manager's presence in the news takes the place of the importance of his decision and the result of his work.

For example, the news of the CEO's visit to the factory is valuable when its connection with a specific issue is clarified. Has there been a problem in production, has a decision been made to improve quality, or has production capacity and staff status changed? Without this information, the news is just a report of the manager's activity and does not help to better understand the organization. The audience wants to know what value the company creates, what challenges it faces and how it fulfills its commitments. A news that answers these questions is more useful than several ceremonial news.

To understand the role of public relations, it is necessary to distinguish between awareness, mental image and trust. Awareness means that the audience has heard the name of the company, it is the mental image of his perceptions of the company, and trust is formed when, based on experience or valid evidence, he expects the company to fulfill its promises.

Sometimes a bank is very well-known but customers are not satisfied with its services, or an industrial company has created a positive image of its production capacity, but employees and customers have a different experience. Public relations affects these perceptions, but does not replace the performance of the organization. Trust is formed gradually and in the audience's encounter with the company's real behavior, and every news or official promise is measured alongside these experiences. Therefore, successful public relations must establish a clear connection between the organization's speech and the actual experience of others, because increasing the distance between the two makes it more difficult to build credibility.

Public relations is not just the spokesperson of the organization

The important difference between news-oriented public relations and efficient public relations is the way of communication with the audience. In the news-oriented model, one-way information is transferred from inside the organization to outside. Management makes decisions, public relations adjusts the news and media releases it.

But effective public relations should also provide the return path of information to know what the customers say, what the concerns of the employees are, what the media asks and what the society expects from the organization. This work is not limited to gathering opinions, but public relations should convey important issues to managers and provide a basis for answering the decisions and actions of the organization. If a service company's customers are constantly complaining about the difficulty of accessing support, publishing a report about the efforts of the support staff without solving the underlying problem will have little effect on their trust. Effective action is that the problem is identified, managers are informed, decisions are made to correct it, and the results of clear actions are presented to the audience so that communication is linked to actual performance.

Independent media has a different position

One of the key points of Al Reyes and Laura Reyes book is the role of independent sources in crediting the brand name. However, the mere publication of an article in the media does not indicate an independent verification of the company's claims. An edited PR story, even in a reputable media outlet, may only represent the company's point of view. More credibility is formed when the claims are verifiable and the media can question them.

For example, announcing the improvement of the quality of a factory's products is different from presenting the results of valid tests, reviewing customer experience, and describing quality control methods. Accurate and evaluable information allows the audience to make independent judgments. Public relations need media with professional independence for credibility, because turning the media into a permanent platform of the organization may make it easier to spread news, but it does not increase the trust of the audience.

What do managers want from public relations?

Changing the position of public relations depends on the view of senior managers. If only the number of news, the amount of republishing and the presence of the CEO's name in the media are demanded, the activity of this unit will also be formed around these indicators. But if the management is looking for the audience's perception of the company, issues affecting the organization's credibility, and actions that require public explanation, the responsibility of public relations will change. In this approach, the number of news is not enough to measure the result, and the audience's understanding of the decisions, the quality of the response, the change in the perceptions of the stakeholders and the distance between the promises and the real experience become important, and their evaluation requires research and data.

Public relations is not responsible for solving all the problems of the organization, but it shows which challenges threaten the credibility of the company and why ignoring them is not compensated by advertising and news. It is not difficult to generate news about the CEO, but it is difficult to have a defensible performance, to explain important decisions and to accept the judgment of others. The value of public relations lies in helping to know the organization and building a reliable relationship with the audience. In such a position, news is a tool whose importance depends on its content, not its frequency.