8 tips for better PR
Good morning! Here’s 8 tips from PubSec that will make you more successful.
1. Make sure there are a couple of decent photos of association presidents and other leaders available for the media and on the internet.
2. Make sure there is at least one image of the president or association leader where he or she is not smiling. The reason for this is that when association leaders are featured or quoted in news stories regarding controversial use of force incidents or contentious contract negotiations, it’s good to have a head shot that communicates the seriousness of the issue at hand. “Cop union backs officer that shot cuffed suspect,” is not a good headline to be smiling under.
3. Spend some time thinking about what your organization does well and what it doesn’t do well. Get some outside help with stuff the org does not do well.
4. Frame attacks on pensions and benefits not as “shared scarifice,” or “austerity” or any of the other terms the enemy would prefer people use. Frame the attacks as “theft.” “Reform,” sounds official and necessary to most. “Stealing,” is what wage theft actually is when strip away all the B.S. so why not call it what it is?
5. Do a cost/benefit analysis on frequent “no-confidence” votes to determine whether the outcome is worth resource expenditure and/or if the whole exercise is just a cheap way to boost morale.
6. Frame attacks on membership (re: pay, benefits) as assault on quality of life for police officers in their official capacity as peace officers AND MORE importantly citizens and people in the community.
7. Immediately collect and destroy any citizen hostile t-shirts members may wear. Or at least ban them in public. These t-shirts will say things like “Human garbage collector,” or “U’raise ‘em, we cage ‘em.” Getting people that wear their disdain for the communities they are sworn to serve and protect a raise in a recession is a very, very long shot.
8. Figure out who’s on the same side in the fight you’re in regardless of their politics in other areas and figure out how to start working with them for mutual benefit.