Are you professional?

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"Professionalism is often more valuable than experience and qualifications."

Professional behaviour has little to do with qualification, position or pay grade.  It has to do with integrity.  We often assume that those with big degrees, lots of letters after their name and a big salary will act professionally, but this is not always the case.  Hopefully, in getting to that position, these people would set a good example in what it means to be professional, but it is just a possible for the person who opens the gate or locks up at night, to be equally professional in their behaviour.

We recently wrote an article for one of our clients, that specialises in outsourced labour solutions, on professionalism.  If you want to build a business and online presence that is based on strong values and principles, then professionalism will play a key role in your reputation.  This article highlights a few key areas where professionalism can be built and maintained; we wrote it in three points: presentation, integrity and boundaries.

These points are applicable to anyone and everyone, they are fundamental to building a strong and mature character.  We’d love to know your thoughts too – so leave us a comment or start a thread on Facebook! Continue reading →

Blogs build relationships…

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Click here for a great article on blogging!

Do we really need a blog?  The question is simple, but the answer it complex.  If you have a strategic approach to your online reputation, or your ORM, then you should realise the complexity of the answer.

One of the hurdles that many online communicators is trying to get tangible results from their efforts to reflect in the profits.  Old-school management styles expect this, but they are on the decline.  Any business savvy person will know that we operate on a level of the triple bottom line:  people, environment and profit.  Leaders and managers alike have acknowledged that without healthy people and a healthy environment, there will not be sustainable profit.

We have said it before, and we’ll keep saying it.  To succeed, you have to put relationships first.  That’s why the answer to ‘Do we really need a blog?” is complex.  It’s complex because it’s about people, and people are no picnic.

Here is a fantastic list of 25 reasons why you need a blog – and they have NOTHING to do with finances…, well, not directly! (read original article)

  1. Create a database of answers — Blog about customer questions. Use links to those posts to save time and answer future questions.
  2. Reward employees — Shine a spotlight on brilliant employees by featuring their ideas and accomplishments on your blog.
  3. Marketing integration — Turn content from your blog into sales and marketing materials.
  4. SEO — Having an active, relevant blog can have a powerful impact on search engine ranking.
  5. Point of differentiation — If your competitors don’t blog, is this an opportunity to stand out in your niche? Continue reading →

Great ORM is not about the platforms; it’s about the people

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Is the focus of your online social media campaign Facebook or Twitter? Our approach to online reputation management (ORM) and search engine optimization (SEO) always begins with the relationships within the organisation.  It’s not services or products that keep business alive, it’s relationships.

Social media is first and foremost about people.

In a recent blog, Mike Saunders makes an excellent observation that so often goes awry when devising communication strategies.

“Social media is about the people, well at least it should be.  Approaching social media strategy with a “platform mentality” is like focusing our attention on the which {sic} bike we need to ride when we should be concentrating on our fitness levels to win the race.

Fitness in social media is the ability to understand our consumers.  Social media allows us to engage, communicate, question and observe our customers.  This should give us a wealth of information to better understand our customers and better meet their needs.  Regardless of the platform, their communication over these platforms should give us insight into their lives, their vales and their needs.”

What Saunders says is not actually a new concept; it’s the age-old concept of defining your target audience before you package your message.  The foremost task in approaching a communication campaign has always been to define your audience and then to choose the best medium possible to reach them.  The options have not changed; they have just expanded.

I was in a strategy meeting last week with the CEO, CFO and IT-guru of a major international group and they have come to the point where they have decided that they need to be present on the social media platforms that are popular in South Africa – Facebook and Twitter.  This is great – they are right, they do need this.  However, with a staff of over 60 000, they wanted to know how their people, the ones without computers or smartphones, would interact with the online social media.

We discussed notice-boards and in-house newsletters, which they already have in place.  I then posed the question; “Who are you trying to reach with the social media available to you?”.  It was this question that allowed them to better understand where we would be headed with the social media campaign and the type of messages that we would use them to communicate.

Developing an online social media strategy is not an IT exercise, it’s not a marketing ploy, and it’s not an advertising campaign.  It’s stock standard Public Relations Management.

Do you need social media?

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In organic SEO (search engine optimisation) and ORM (online reputation management), social media become the vehicles for your messages and your online sustainability and credibility.


We work mostly with small businesses or independent service providers who believe enough in themselves to take on the larger organisations that are able to offer better price, but aren’t always able to get in touch with their customers on a personal level: the personal touch.  The one thing that is always present: passion.

That’s the beauty of the businesses that keep the economy thriving, they’re big enough to make a difference and small enough to remain passionate and focused on what they’re doing with the same natural drive that spurred them to take action in the first place.

“The power of public relations lies in good communication that is aimed at building sustainable relationships.”

The hurdle that they most often face is that of a small voice, but a big heart.  Here’s where online reputation management comes to their aid.  If you’re in a smaller organisation or work for a non-profit, where there is no large budget for major marketing and communication campaigns, you need to know that you can harness the power of social media and blogging to establish, enhance and explode your communication potential!

Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the like, are not about how many people follow but WHO follos.  Some of the people that we’ve worked with have always said “We’re not big enough to have a twitter stream” or  “We won’t have enough fans on Facebook”, and our response is “The sooner you start, the better.”

The power of public relations lies in good communication that is aimed at building sustainable relationships.  Communication always works best when it starts with the smaller things and establishes a base of trust and credibility.  This is why we use blogs, Facebook and twitter in our strategies.  These online communication tools provide us with the foundation for saying what needs to be said and then telling others that we’ve said it.

Social media is not about advertising slogans or marketing catch-phrases.  It’s about being real, relevant and playing your role in your community. So, if you’re still asking “Do we need social media?”, then let me answer for you: “Yes.”

Here are some solid principles, that we recently came across, to approaching and managing your social media strategy.
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Enhance your online writing

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Enhance your online writing skillsWriting for the web is both a skill and a talent.  What you lack in the one, you can always make up for with the other!  Our approach is simple:

“Write as much as you can by writing as little as possible.”

Even saying this can be confusing… but the principle is that you want to tell your readers as much as possible without losing the plot, or losing them!  Many readers won’t read passed your first paragraph, so all the important information needs to be creatively penned, early in the copy.

Your online reputation as well as your copy’s SEO (search engine optimization) hangs heavily on well written prose.

However, some readers will read further, so you need to expand in such a way that keeps them interested, and not thinking “But they said that already!”.

Here are five great tips, that we read recently, from which we are confident you will benefit.

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Social media boom in SA

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One of the most asked questions that I have received is – “Are South Africans using Twitter?”

The time to jump onto the Social Media Bandwagon is most definitely here!

In a recent article on ITWeb the facts about the social media boom in South Africa were laid bare and made for a very interesting read.  Most (if not all) of the larger South African businesses already have a significant and well maintained footprint on both Facebook and Twitter.  However, local SMME’s are the ones who could benefit the most, but are largely misrepresented due to insufficient updates, or they are not represented at all.

Continue reading →

Empower your writers

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“Empower writers, because the writer runs the show. Quality content gets you where you want to go.” @SoniaSimone

Writers are the mouth-piece for their clients; they are not the message originators but the message communicators.  Here’s a communication model to help explain the role of the client and the writer in online communication and online reputation management.

Client = Input
Writer/Online PR Manager = Encoder
Medium = Website/Blog/SM
Receiver = Internal and External Stakeholders

Good quality content comes from a combination of authentic and relevant facts, and creative communication skills.  Whether you’re writing for a globally listed company or a local NGO, the aim of your communication should be to encounter, engage and encourage your audience – that’s what leads to sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships.

What often happens is that this is all left up to the writer’s pen, which may work for a while, but it will not bring about long-term growth.  Creative communication entertains, whilst authentic and factual communication edifies.  The aim of online reputation management is to combine these two factors (entertainment & edification) in the correct ‘code’ that will break through all the ‘noise’ of all the other messages and be ‘decoded’ in a positive and beneficial manner.

Employers and clients need to empower their writers with the facts and encourage them to be creative in a way that builds into the message and doesn’t take away from it.