Having represented hundreds of different clients (including political leaders) we talk to reporters on a daily basis. Our job is to work alongside the reporter and provide the best and most interesting information. Most reporters are balanced and fair. Others may have agendas, a bias or may have the full article written before they come to you for comment. And as PR professionals we know this. The real skill is in how we handle that challenge. There is strategy behind it and it doesn’t involve expletives and name calling.

As with the law, “anything you say can and will be used against you” and in this case it was. The spokesperson not only lost his cool, he had it documented in an email correspondence. While it may have been therapeutic in the heat of the moment, his comments will forever be searchable online. The better option would have been to quietly close his office door, let out a soft scream, take a few deep breaths and then get back to emailing the reporter, politely.

Does your association have its own Cinderella story to share? In your perfect fairy tale, wouldn’t members, the media, and other stakeholders regularly read, share, and promote your content?

Come 2012, many associations will find themselves poised to place more importance on storytelling and message development.

In our time-crunched world of social media, deadlines, and endless emails, it’s only natural to feel nostalgia for our favorite fairy tales of Disney days gone-by. So let’s revisit the traditional fairytale to identify a few of the factors at play when you’re looking to share your association’s story (and live happily ever after).

• Cinderella’s endless chores: Day to day obstacles preventing you from putting time and strategy into a content-sharing plan.
• Glass Slipper: Find your association’s unique differentiator and use online content that helps you standout.
• Evil Stepsisters: A finicky executive board that often stalls big ideas or initiatives.
• The Royal Ball: Your annual meeting. The culmination of your yearly content sharing.

Storytelling is an important component of PR and communications that is poised to be increasingly incorporated into associations’ online content. It’s about creating a tangible link between the organization, its content, and its member’s daily lives. However, association staff have many different stakeholders to consider, different audiences to address, and often face obstacles internally.

Regardless of the type of story, there’s always an author and a reader. The author (your organization) has a point to make while the reader wants to learn, be informed, or entertained. An effective story meets the desires of both parties, whether it is written for an online audience or for the media.

Regarding digital content, it’s essential to create and share stories that have a simple objective and simple elements.  In today’s time crunched (and easily distracted) world, it’s paramount to be succinct and stick to the point.

Whatever your story is for your organization, each message you relay to stakeholders must funnel back up to that story. To come up with some story concepts, consider answering these questions:

• What aspects of the association’s vision do we want to project to members and key stakeholders?
• What is unique about your members and our industry?
• What’s going on in the headlines and how does it relate to our members everyday lives?
• How do we further engage members and encourage them to share their own stories?

Refreshing your organization’s content structure with human elements, anecdotes, and member stories helps create more compelling, memorable messages. For more information or storytelling training contact Epic PR Group at 703-299-3404 or visit us at www.epicprgroup.com.

This is a guest blog post by Adele Cehrs and her team from Epic PR Group, part of a series of predictions for 2012.

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within organizations, teams, or groups. It exists when the desire for harmony overrides a realistic evaluation of options and alternatives. The essence of this decision-making trap is the irrational pursuit of consensus above all other priorities.

Groupthink was originally studied by psychologist Irving Janis in 1972. He found that a lack of conflict or opposing viewpoints led to poor decision-making, because alternatives were not fully analyzed and because groups did not gather enough information to make an informed decision.

When is Groupthink more likely to happen? Janis suggested that Groupthink is most prevalent when there is:

• A strong, persuasive group leader;
• A high-level of group cohesion; or
• Intense pressure from outside influences (like budgets, bosses, or members) to make a good decision.

Groupthink can stifle teamwork, undermine important decisions, and leave all but the most vocal team members dissatisfied. So how do teams avoid or remedy groupthink?

Be on the look out for signs of Groupthink, so you can nip it in the bud. It’s important to have a process in place for checking the assumptions behind important decisions, for validating the decision-making process, and for evaluating the risks. Allow each group member to contribute individually, minimizing the odds that persuasive, vocal group members dominate the decision making process.

At Epic, we partner with a psychology Ph.D.to examine this and other psychological thinking traps. Check out our video interview here to learn more: http://vimeo.com/32941909

What are the psychological aspects of this holiday? In a world of social media, smartphones, and deadlines, it’s no secret that many of us don’t take enough time to count our blessings and give thanks. However, psychological research indicates that cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, less anxiety and depression, higher satisfaction with life, and kinder behavior toward others.

A new study, published in The New York Times, even indicates that feeling grateful actually makes people less likely to turn aggressive when provoked.

It’s important to note the difference between gratitude and indebtedness. People may feel obliged to return a favor, but that’s not gratitude, at least not from a psychological standpoint. Indebtedness doesn’t yield the same benefits as gratitude (which inclines people to be nice to anyone, not just someone who helped you them). For example –

In an experiment at Northeastern University, researchers would intentionally sabotage a participant’s computer and then arranged for another student to help out and fix it for them. Afterward, the students who had been helped by others were likelier to volunteer to help someone else (even a complete stranger) with an unrelated task.

Overall, gratitude:

o   Helps people become less aggressive by enhancing their empathy;

o   Increases the likelihood that we will help others; and

o   Is part of a psychological system that causes people to raise their guess of how much other people value them.

How do we apply these benefits to the business world? Consider your relationships with clients, customers, colleages, etc. What do you value about them? What do you think they value most about you?

This Thanksgiving, we’re dishing out a heaping portion of gratitude for our great clients, a fantastic new office space, and a new addition to our staff for 2012. Happy Holidays!

When faced with big choices, people often rely on the most easily accessible information as opposed to the most important.

The availability bias is a phenomenon in which people predict the frequency of an event, or the popularity of an idea, based on how easily an example can be brought to mind. This bias operates on the notion that “if you can think of it, it must be important.”

Things which are easier to imagine are usually more vivid in our minds, so they are more ‘available’.

For example – people rate the chance of death by homicide higher than the chance of death by stomach cancer, even though death by stomach cancer is five times higher than death by homicide.

Unfortunately, it’s human nature to be overly influenced by attention grabbing information, even when it’s not necessarily pertinent. It causes us to think that events that receive heavy media attention are more important than they really are.

Consider how the 24/7 news cycle may strengthen this bias. Because we remember recent experiences or reports, the news has a significant effect on our decisions. After a news feature about a mugging case, many women will be more nervous about going out alone at night. We have thus been primed by the news, increasing the accessibility of this information.

Availability biases can result in poor decision-making because they are based on single, potentially skewed, examples. Understanding how the brain works is important not only to craft campaigns that support the way people think, but also to avoid the biases in our own brains as we make decisions and pursue more objective thinking.

Further evidence that the C-Suite increasingly values reputation management and crisis preparedness: insurance companies are now offering insurance policies that help companies pay for crisis PR.

First, London-based insurers announced their new “Hotel Reputation Protection 2.0″ policy to limit hotels’ liability resulting from negative media coverage or social media backlash. The policy would pay an insured hotel up to about $34 million to cover both lost revenue from negative publicity and the hiring of a crisis PR consultant.

More recently, a division of AIG Insurance now offers a new type of insurance policy that helps embattled companies pay for crisis PR. “Reputation Risk Insurance,” is now offered through AIG’s subsidiary Chartis. As a justification for the new offering, Chartis cited a recent survey of public and private board members showing that 69% now rank reputation risk as their primary concern.

What types of crises do you think this policies should cover? With insurance agencies available to foot the bill, do you think more companies will be more likely to spring for a crisis communications consultant?

This response, hard-wired into our brains, is designed to protect us when we experience trauma or possible danger. Oftentimes when faced with an unexpected crisis, people either get defensive (fight) or bury their heads in the sand (flight).

However, during a communications crisis, leadership needs to be able to tap into a more evolved, strategic approach when dealing with complex issues. Organizations should be wary of how the natural urge to either fight or flee can negatively impact their objectivity, response strategy, and ultimately their bottom line.

In any crisis, time is always of the essence and when the media get involved, deadlines are usually tight. So how do you ensure that you not only weather the storm, but communicate your message effectively? By preparing ahead of time.

Studies indicate that organizations that prepare for PR crises in advance actually experience fewer issues and recover more quickly. We’ve outlined some quick tips to anticipate and prepare for potential PR issues before they happen:

Brainstorm every crisis your organization would most likely encounter. According to recent surveys, 49% of business decision-makers across the globe believe social media has made their company more vulnerable to a crisis and 79% expect to experience a crisis within the next year. However only half of them reported that their companies have a crisis communications plan. What issues have you faced in the past? What factors do you think could make your organization liable for a crisis? Start your planning based off of the issues that are likely to happen and that would have the highest impact on your organization.

Have a plan in place. Have your crisis response team assembled ahead of time. Involve public relations staff, executive spokespeople, board members (if need be), legal, etc. Too many cooks in the kitchen always complicates a crisis so have your team assembled before one strikes.

Practice how you will implement the plans. Consider investing in crisis scenario training, or creating a dark website ahead of time where your stakeholders can find FAQs, official statements, among other resources.

Develop messages ahead of time. While you can’t specifically predict what your crisis could look like, create basic, adaptable messages for social media, blogs, traditional media, and website that address common issues without fueling the fire. Make sure your proof points are quickly accessible, in case a reporter asks you to back up or prove any of your assertions.

Bottom line? Crises are always stressful, but preparing ahead of time will help reduce that panicky feeling. People under emotional stress oftentimes make devastatingly bad decisions, which is why it’s essential to anticipate crises before they happen.

We teamed up with a Psychology Ph.D. at George Washington University, to break down this effect and its implications. Check out our discussion below:

According to Psychology Today magazine, in deception studies where people are asked to guess whether someone is lying or telling the truth, participants tend to see more truths than lies – even when they are told beforehand that half are lies, they still judge well more than half the statements as true. We are inclined to trust that people will tell us the truth.

Given the frequency that people tell lies, why are we so inclined to trust? According to the magazine, there are several factors at play:

Cognitive Laziness: people like to take mental shortcuts. Trusting others involves less effort than carefully analyzing what others are telling us. This is why many people don’t read the fine print of contracts or properly investigate claims

Drive to Avoid Embarrassment: when we suspect that someone is being dishonest, we don’t challenge them out of fear of embarrassment. We avoid calling someone out because if we are wrong, it can be embarrassing (remember that scene at the end of Meet The Parents when Ben Stiller accuses his fiancé’s father of being a spy, when in reality he was just planning a surprise honeymoon?)

The Trusting Bias: back in the days of cavemen and Neanderthals, cooperation was essential to survival. As a result, we are biologically programmed to trust others. Liken it to ‘innocent until proven guilty’ – we perceive people to be ‘trustworthy until proven dishonest’.

Belief in a Just World: we like to think that the world is fair, and that things will all even out in the end. You’ll “get yours”.

In an industry like public relations/communications, developing an understanding of belief and confidence and what drives it is essential.

Trust us…

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

Jokes aside, presentation skills aren’t just important for students. They’re vital if you want to move up in your career, persuade higher-ups, or justify a cause. Check out these quick tips before your next presentation:

Relax. Begin by addressing the audience. Smile and count to three before saying anything.

Get real. Use humor, personal stories, anecdotes, and conversational language – that way you won’t forget what to say, and you can bond with your audience.

Analogies help. We’ve likened PR tactics to cocktails, social media strategy to reality TV, and even crisis tips to 80′s hits! Creating analogies helps breakdown your topic and makes it more memorable to your audience.

Practice,  practice, practice! This one probably goes without saying. Rehearse out loud with a colleague or friend, and revise as necessary.

Don’t apologize for being nervous, if you make a mistake, or misspeak. Most audience members won’t even notice and not only will you draw more attention to your flaws, but you’ll look weak.

Know the room. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids. Remember to test out your PowerPoint as well.

Talk slower than you think you’ll need to. Nervous speakers tend to talk way to fast. Consciously slow your speech down and add pauses as needed.

Don’t read from you PowerPoint! You’ll come off as unprepared and inauthentic, and the audience will lose interest and confidence in you. Sometimes a visual cue or an image on your slides works best.

To learn more about presentation training tips, email adele@epicprgroup.com.

In social psychology, it’s called the inoculation theory. Consider how medical inoculation works by exposing a body to weakened viruses. It’s strong enough to produce antibodies, but not so strong to make the person sick.

In communication, inoculation seems to work the same way. The advantage lies in being the first to expose an individual to an idea or request. Liken it to courtroom dramas, in the attorney’s opening arguments when they tell the jury about what the other side will do and say to ‘try to convince them’.

Psychologist William McGuire published his social inoculation theory in 1961. He took the basic idea behind medical inoculations and spread it to social behavior.

Inoculation works because it causes people to think more carefully and deeply about messages. The more they think, the stronger the attitude becomes.

The whole point of inoculation theory is to get people to think for themselves.  When people actively generate their own ideas and thoughts, then have to vigorously defend those ideas and thoughts, they will develop considerably stronger attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

Consider all of the ways that communicators use this theory – politicians campaigning for office use it to vie for voter support if their opponents run attack ads. Non-smoking campaigns use it as a messaging technique to children and teens warning them, “Cigarette companies will tell you that smoking is cool, hip, etc…”

Do you think this tactic influences you? Have you ever experienced someone attempting to persuade you this way?