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PR that shows ‘we care’ as we head for recovery

The pandemic pushed entrepreneurs, that includes public relations professionals like us in PRWorks, to work at home. We are doing our part in flattening the curve. Yet we continue to think community during the quarantine.

The quarantine may have physically confined us. But as public relations practitioners, we feel this impulse to do more. We want to uplift lives. The more we deemed it important to help.

Thanks to technology, we did not just adapt. We began communicating more using SMS, Facebook, Messenger, Skype and Zoom. We took off beyond our homes in our quest to uplift lives.

Family first

To be able to help the larger community well, we take care of family first. Unlike the pre-pandemic times, we will be spending more time bonding with family every day. Plus, of course, the provisions and the sharing of chores.

And don’t forget the grandparents and other senior relatives. Taking care of family is crucial to thinking about community.

Your team

Next, we juggle our time with managing a team whose members also work at home. This means relying on the chat group and video conferencing.

The focus now is collectively uniting on how to view and act on the new situation. This includes communicating with clients as well as working on being relevant during the crisis.

We make sense of the seeming chaos and move forward. The way to go during these COVID-19 times is “Think Community.”

Thinking community during the quarantine

The memes below should give you an idea of the content we are creating for our social media assets. We likewise included pictures of the other pro-community activities PRWorks Inc. principals have been doing through the quarantine.

But do not bounce just yet. We reserved the more juicier part after the memes.

Anol Mongaya, co-founder and executive director of PRWorks Inc., is involved in the relief and assistance efforts of the Political Officers League of the Philippines (POLPhil).

Let’s Think Community this quarantine. Show we care.

With news about the coronavirus dominating, developing public relations plans and executing effectively have become quite a challenge. However, savvy companies do not stop communicating. These companies adapt.

During a webinar, one business analyst noted that the car industry is down. However, if somebody will soon be looking for car to buy, a car company will want to be this guy’s choice. Hotels and resorts might expect tourism to recover slowly. But there might be demand for staycations when government lift the quarantine.

In broad terms, PRWorks recommends:

Know your community.

At the first part of this post, we talked about family, your team, and the larger community. The larger community includes the audience of your owned, earned, and paid media. This means conducting continuing conversations with your various communities. With people now going online, the PR professional needs to constantly engage in Facebook, converse in various chat groups, conduct and join meetings and forums via Skype and Zoom.

In particular, understand and empathize with the pain your various communities confront. During these difficult Covid-19 days, we all experience the rapidly changing reality outside and inside the home. Many need to grasp the situation and figure out ways to move forward.

Pursue a caring agenda. Lead with empathy.

Think community during the quarantine. The mindset should keep a company away from capitalizing on the pandemic for profit. If one has to market or sell a product or service, it should be about helping the community. Easy access to information. Entertainment to keep people to stay at home. Making work at home more productive. How to keep social distancing. Simpler and more affordable ways of delivering food and other necessities to communities in need. Trouble-free systems to send donations.

Understand how the pandemic changed news coverage.

The coronavirus has dominated the news since April 2020. The crisis has also affected the practice of journalism. Noteworthy are the online press conferences and shift to digital coverages. Reporters prefer to work at home and keep safe. Thus, pitching through chats and email had become more important. Then, the preference for video interviews of experts grew.

Understanding our media frontliners also means grasping what their audience wants.

Revamp the message. Adopt the ‘think community’ mindset.

While the frontliners in media chase daily updates on persons who turned up positive and breaking news, expect the search for positive angles on Covid-19. Journalists also face the pressure of ensuring accuracy as they battle for credibility and trust with false information in social media.

The months of reading about Covid-19 and the negativity this imply have led to a yearning for more positive stories. Journalists and content creators will need leads towards positive stories. The PR professional can focus on how to ease the entrepreneurs’ pain of remote visibility, lesser productivity, and remote agility. Then, of course, how both the public and private sectors are responding to the challenge.

With these in mind, there is a need to revamp the message, if one has not done it yet. During the quarantine, adopt the ‘think community’ positioning. And make sure, they get accurate information.

Thoughts on our post-pandemic future.

Covering the Covid-19 story in the Philippines