 I have a bit of a confession for you. I love those nature documentary TV shows movies and things anything to do with nature, especially Africa. I'm fascinated with Africa. I just love all those nature documentaries and and one of the things I'm especially interested in is the what's called symbiosis that exists between some of these animals like you have these big hippos and and these birds that live basically on top the hippos and around the hippos and they have this mutually beneficial relationship that the birds help take care of bugs and other things that would bother the hippo otherwise and the The hippo provides protection and things for the birds. It's just this wonderful relationship between the hippo and the birds is again symbiotic relationship that benefits both parties in the you know course of nature and in truth organizations really aren't that different there exists a symbiosis between an organization and a community and it resides in which it serves and and so public relations then has an important role to play in the role of Corporate communication to help develop and maintain and You know ensure the smoothness of that symbiotic relationship between the organization and the community and the public's that it serves So in this video, we're going to talk a little bit about corporate Communication and we're going to focus primarily on external communication It will touch on internal, but we have a separate video for employee relations and you can check it out but so this is going to focus primarily on External communications, but how this corporation or organization works with the community around it how we communicate that the importance of that and and the role that public relations plays in that function so in truth Corporate communication comes down to a really a very simple equation sort of that or this is the sort of balancing act If you want to think of it that way that Basically, you know trust is important for that organization It's important that the public be able to trust them your customers trust you your employees trust you that that there exists a level of Trust between an organization and the various publics that it serves And so it's a really simple equation to get to that that sort of positive balance of trust You need more positive news stories and more positive impact than you have negative You want the positive to outweigh the negative in other words and that will then cause the trust to slide now Toward where you want it to be and and you know these publics will have more trust in your organization So we want to then both create circumstances where that's the case and then also publicize those circumstances that would that would kind of you know Provide that positive impact in the community and provide that positive sense of Trust and in gender trust through that those positive news mentions and positive relationship-building Elements that exist between the organization and the community So if we look at the specific functions then of corporate public relations And we think of corporate communication or corporate public relations Whatever it might be called at the organization where you're working and it could be different if you're in a non-profit or in a government agency Maybe a public information officer or or whatever it is but you know basically we're talking about any function of public relations that where you're you're you are The middle person between the organization and the public and really publicizing what that Organization is doing so some of the different functions though may involve Identifying and engaging key stakeholders. This could be employees. It could be Investors it could be customers. It could be just people who live nearby physically live nearby wherever your organization is at There are lots of different stakeholders as we've talked about before In public relations that we have to be concerned with so we want to identify those stakeholders first and then engage them in a positive way So that's a that's a function of corporate PRs to both Identify and then engage in some way those key stakeholders so that we develop those and cultivate those positive relationships We also want to secure effective media coverage and ideally effective positive media coverage obviously We want to we want to develop relationships with people in the media and the different media outlets and so we can get our news out there when it's appropriate and And so that we can kind of shape the story and shape the narrative around our organization and they can cultivate those positive feelings as Positive relationships within the community through the kind of gatekeepers of the media. So we need to secure effective media coverage We also want to be developing thought leadership opportunities. So Thought leadership is basically Anytime you can put somebody from an organization who's an expert in something in front of a public crowd That's thought leadership in essence or you can publicize some research that you're doing that's going to benefit the community or benefit You know your customers or whoever. It's it's those types of things, but so giving a speech having your CEO or somebody Significant the organization give a speech on the area of expertise To a community group would be an example of thought leadership or publicizing some research that you know that can be publicized That's happening within your organization and the imp positive impact that it's going to have on the community and on the world If if that's the case so but we want to develop these thought leadership opportunities to not only put our people out in front of the world but also to develop their Their world the world of the people who Have relationships with our organization, you know with our customers with our clients with our Community with our peers. We want to develop those thought leadership extra opportunities so that we can Demonstrate that the quality of our organization and the positive impact that our organization has And then in general we've talked about corporate social responsibility in other videos, but we need to develop and promote Corporate brand what we call corporate brand through corporate and social responsibility. All right, so We want people to when they think of the brand of our organization or our company We want them to have positive thoughts. We want to develop that positive Brand right that that says that to you know, for example, when you think of whole foods Just you know the first thing that comes to mind from most people would be our many people would be okay. It's nutritious It's good for the environment. It's good for it's good for us as people. They're looking out for us And so they have a sort of that that's their brand that they are sort of health conscious and and Concerned with the environment and things like that As opposed to you know, Amazon in some ways has a corporate brand that says you can get what you want and you Can get it quickly But their corporate brand has also taken a hit in recent years in terms of they don't necessarily treat their employees the way Some people think they ought to Maybe their packaging is not so great for the environment And so when you're ordering multiple things and they come in six different boxes Gosh that what what impact can that really have when you have millions of people doing that? Around you know around the country around the world or whatever So their corporate brand has taken a hit in recent years in terms of yes They're efficient and they're they're large and they're cheaper But are they really good for the community or they good for the environment they good for their employees and so forth? So so we need to focus on our corporate brand and develop that corporate ran through corporate social responsibility So whether that's through your organization what we're doing in our company with we don't we're making donations We're we're being responsible in terms of the environment and things like that or whether it's through our employees supporting our employees volunteer Efforts and and and supporting them in their own organizations their pursuits and supporting their development or whatever it is However, we're doing that when we want to develop our corporate brand and promote that corporate brand through corporate social responsibility And finally the the sort of the last category we're going to look at here is the Public relations in in the corporate world oftentimes involves managing issues and crises This is something we'll get into in a in a later video here, but the difference between these really is that managing issues is proactive trying to you know anticipate things that might be coming down the pike ways that things might be affected and So we're trying to manage those issues Proactively and get in front of them head them off if we can but if not then get in front of them and determine How we're going to deal with those things or crises which are more reactive? They're not proactive with crises or things We don't see coming and there are issues that we have to respond to on the fly a lot of times And we have to respond quickly in order to be effective So in both of those areas though public relations is involved in managing both the issues and Crises within an organization. That's another function of corporate PR. So so as you can see public Relations in the corporate world takes on a lot of different Focuses it's a lot of different areas. There's a lot of different Your hands and a lot of different cookie jars here when we're dealing with that which some people find really exciting other people find not as Engaging they like to focus more on one thing or another And the larger the organization the more likely you're gonna have the people that somebody's gonna focus on each one of these things Specifically if you're a smaller organization, you might be responsible for all these things But if you're in a larger organization, you'll probably have more of a division of labor And you may be focusing more on one of these things than the others or a couple of these things Just depending on the size of the organization and the structure of that organization, but But public relations could theoretically Be involved in in any of these tasks One of the things we mentioned was corporate branding so I want to take a minute to look at corporate branding and And take a look what that looks like so and some key elements for corporate branding You know branding is just as we've as I mentioned before branding is just establishing You know the essentially the identity of your organization What are you gonna be known for when people hear the name of your organization? What's sort of the first thing that comes to mind or the or the thing that they attach with your organization or attached to your organization? most readily So when we think about corporate branding, it's a cup. It's important to keep a few things in mind first of all You want to pick a lane you want to decide you want it You want to shape that narrative of what your organization is going to be known for What is your brand and they'd be very specific in picking a lane with you know? How are you going to approach that are you going to for social media? Let's just take social media for example Are you gonna be the really engaging social media brand where where you're kind of you know You're are you gonna try and be funny? Are you gonna try to engage people that way or are you gonna be really serious? You're gonna be factual you're gonna be whatever you know what and how does that tie into your overall brand is your brand that? You're a fun organization that you have a fun product or service or as it is more serious You need to be a little more buttoned up and We need to pick a lane decide what is our brand and Stick to that you know stick stick to that unless we decide to make a conscious change And then switch over to another lane, right? But but otherwise we want to stay in our lane and make sure that everything we're doing is really pointing back to that specific brand You also need to know your audience You need to know whether or not your audience has a sense of humor or whether or not they're more serious or you know Whether they're gonna be on social media or whether they like something a little more traditional So we need to when we're trying to establish our brand and promote that brand We need to know where our audience is gonna be where we're going to find our audience And when we're thinking about audiences, don't forget about your internal audience Be sure that your employees understand what your brand is as an organization that they're in line with that that they support that and And and so so we want to make sure that internally We have all of our ducks in a row in terms of branding as well that that our employees are aware of our brand and conscientious of that and Following following that the policies and principles that we have in place in order to maintain that brand I don't be afraid to lean into whatever it is. You know once you pick that lane Really lean into it if it's gonna be if you're gonna be funny be funny and be funny consistently Be make sure that you're funny and not just that you think you're funny But other people think you're funny if you're gonna be serious if you're gonna be you know the Whatever it is, whatever your brand is Lean into that really go for it. Don't don't take half measures here when it comes to branding You really have to be all in on whatever your brand is going to be and finally be consistent again That's sort of the touching on what we've been talking about here, but be consistent Don't try and constantly jump back and forth between funny and serious and and all these other Areas decide who you are as an organization I really lean into that and then be consistent with that Have that follow through with all of your different methods of communicating with your audiences and with your public's right Be consistent in who you establish that you are and who you communicate to your public's that you are What kind of last aspect of public relations in a corporate world I wanted to look at real quick was just a financial Communication and sometimes as public relations people we are specifically tasks tasks with communicating something related to Finances regarding that organizations. That's not uncommon at all. Whether it's internal or external So financial communications can be a little different So a couple tips or points that I wanted to throw out there for financial communications First of all a public company means public relations if you work for a and you're representing a publicly traded organization publicly traded company or Organization that the claims to serve the public good then you need some public relations You have a community that you're serving and so you need to be aware of that And so public relations are important anytime when you have a public company who's Either traded publicly or doing business publicly and engaging with customers publicly So if that's the case you need to be aware of and consider the public relations aspect of things for your organization Also need to remember coming back to this that media matters media are the gatekeepers They they share a lot of information they control a lot of the narrative and and help you develop that narrative and and Get the word spread. So media matters. It's important to develop relationships people in the media and have clarity in What that relationship is okay, don't let those lines get blurry, but but keep up very clear But but but vibrant relationship active with the different media outlets that might Affect your organization Also need to be focused with investors of this is a publicly traded company. You're gonna have investors You have to have a plan for How am I going to communicate with investors about money? What money are they? Sorry, what information are they? Entitled to what information would be good for them to know and support our case and those types of things and and what's the best way for me to communicate that to them so Lots of things to think about one more dealing with investors as well And then finally not to keep you know beating a dead horse here, but but corporate social responsibility People want to know that we're good stewards with the money and not just using it wisely within the organization But we're using it in a way that benefits the community. That's very important so anyway engaging in corporate and social responsibility, it's an important aspect of Financial communications for a public relations person as well In the end we can see that this all really comes back to relationships in developing relationships building relationships cultivating relationships and maintaining relationships and and utilizing those relationships to the best interest of the other party and and yourself but People really make up these chains and this this chain that leads you from Effects of public relations to you know to Engagement with your communities and your publics and things so the people Aspect is very very important whether those people are internal employees or whether they are People in the public's that you're serving. We need to remember that these relationships depend on people Organizations don't build relationships with one another that then we've not the buildings and things It's it's the people within those organizations that really develop those relationships If you have questions about corporate communication or about anything else related to public relations, please feel free to email me I'd enjoy communicating with you there in the meantime. I hope that you have Enjoy this overview of corporate communication and have a better understanding of the different functions that are served in that particular field or vein of public relations You