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Top 5 tips for Crisis Communications in Scandinavia

21/12/2019By scandinaviancomChange Communications, Christina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR Tips & Trends, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media, SoMe Tips & Trends, Strategic Communications

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Crisis Communications Advisor

When crisis or change hits like a bolt from the blue it’s normal for even the most experienced executive to feel concerned. Especially when you want to be at the forefront of things. Here are my Top 5 tips on how you navigate successfully through the storm when a crisis or change hits you in the Scandinavian market:

1. Response quick – but well thought out

A quick response is key in a critical situation, because it gives you the chance to handle and control the situation and thereby the outcome proactively with a higher possibility for success. BUT the quick response must be flanked by carefully thought out communications – especially what key messages you need to deliver in the conversation with your different stakeholders.

Scandinavians are very critical and direct – and we don’t hold back with the questions. This apply to both employees, journalists, clients, business partners and competitors. So, you really need to prepare. I find that one of the most effective ways in crisis and change communications in Scandinavia is to draw up and work with different realistic crisis or change scenarios and plan, what to do and say in each imaginary scenario – and which communications channels will suit your messages and conversations with different internal and external stakeholders best.

2. Get ready for conversation

What is your key message? Your communication is clearer, when you only focus on one or few key messages.
Who are you talking to? (Your key target group/stakeholders)
Which information do the person/stakeholders need?
Which situation are they in? Communicate the messages relevant to them, not to you.
Choose your role based on the person/target group. Are you formal or informal? How do you dress? What language and body language do you use? BUT be yourself!
Prepare, prepare and prepare.
Train, train and train.

3. Take control over your body language

Your body language is your greatest asset, when you know how to control and use it. When you learn to use your body language proactively combined with clear messages, you can be a brilliant and authentic leader and communicator. BUT if you don’t have your body language under control – and that is quite normal in a crisis or change situation, when you might get nervous – then it can work so much against you, that nobody hears what you say. Well-known international studies show, that up to 80 % of people’s perception of you will be from your body language. That is if you fail to control it. Otherwise people listen. Scandinavian will mostly listen – if it’s not to boring. And if you serve beer (or something stronger for the Finns) they will really listen. 😉.

Control what we see:

Posture: Straight back and raised head express security, authority and energy.
Choose a suitable grimace for the occasion; Seriousness, enthusiasm or joy?
Use gestures that support the message.
Firm eye contact exudes security and credibility.
If you avoid eye contact it signals insecurity, uncertainty – and thus untrustworthiness.
Pay attention to your bad habits and patterns – they especially come out when you are nervous under pressure.
Look fresh and well-rested (of cause sometimes that might be a little difficult in a crisis).

Control what we hear:

Deep and calm voicing creates trust and credibility.
Variation in voice creates dynamism and awareness of the recipient.
Talk slowly – without getting boring. It exudes heaviness and credibility.
Breath deep and use (rhetorical) pauses.

4. Keep calm
Even the most experienced executive can get nervous under pressure in a difficult crisis or change situation. That is just human nature.

What happens when you get nervous?

You protect your body with your arms, turn your back, avoid eye contact, smile stiffly and stave off.
You sweat, get pale, get ticks, mess with your hair or perform other unconscious bad habits. What are your bad habits under pressure?
You move uneasily; rocks or turns on the chair. Tilting back and forth on your feet.
You breathe quickly and superficially.
You speak faster and get a sharper and lighter voice.

Then what to do?

Breathe deeply and plant both feet into the floor.
Lower your talk rate and use (rhetorical) pauses.
Open your arms, straighten your back and look up and out.
Make and maintain eye contact – possibly look between the eyes if real eye contact is unpleasant.
Only smile when it suits the occasion.
Sit and stand still.
Choose a chair that stands firm. Otherwise you will quite easy start rocking or turn it.
If at a presentation: Go consciously among the audience.
Avoid carbonated water – so you don’t burp (when you breathe quick and superficially).

5. Use the crisis to your advantage

When your response quickly and are well prepared, you can turn the difficult situation into your advantage. By working out a carefully thought out message platform with key messages as a first step. And train through the different scenarios with message- and media training, you can navigate successfully through. Get your Crisis Communications Action Plan in order; Who do you need to communicate to as a first step? When and how? If you handle crisis and change like this, people will understand you much better – and even get on your side. When you keep calm and friendly – and communicate in a clear and authentic way you be at the forefront of things. And as always, the most important thing is to prepare – and train, train, train!

Get free crisis advise and learn more about Crisis Communications

Need help with Crisis Communications in Scandinavia?

5 Trends Influencing the State of Public Relations

15/11/2019By scandinaviancomPR, PR Tips & Trends, Public Relations Global Network, Strategic Communications

By Aaron Blank, President of PRGN & CEO of The Fearey Group

Public relations is thriving – and evolving in exciting ways. It’s a great time to be in the business.

At its core, our work is unchanging: actively pursuing relationships – shaping them, building them and maintaining them. That will always be front and center. But other aspects of our profession are developing or expanding.

Here are the trends I’m watching:

1. Demand for data. The push to link PR to overall business objectives continues, pushing us to develop more and more meaningful metrics to measure PR performance and impact on operations. Measurement has always been a challenge for PR practitioners, but it’s finally getting easier. Now we can measure article clicks, sentiment and tone much more easily. For example, we can automatically measure links back to websites to show how our work drives traffic or supports lead generation.

2. Application of search. Search now plays a critical role in forming PR campaigns. We can use SEO keywords to discover trends, identify potential news items and understand the questions, issues, products and service people are looking for. This makes it faster and easier to target our work to consumer insights.

3. Optimized press releases. People have been saying that the press release is dead for years. And the truth is, the old version of the release is. Gone are the days when we wrote a release and expected the media to pick it up. Today’s optimized press release is content – content that enables us to tell our own story and manage our message. Still a great way to update reporters on organizational news, modern releases posted on our own sites support organic and paid search, and create opportunities to link back to additional content in our ecosystem. We can use them as catalysts for identifying issues or events to leverage and serve as the foundational content for larger campaigns involving earned, owned and paid media.

4. Investment in AI. It’s fun to see how artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to play a role in the industry. For instance, a new tool called SignalAI uses AI to make it easier to track numerous companies, people, events, trends – and analyze that information to support decision-making and inform campaigns. And new AI transcription services such as REV make speech-to-text faster and cheaper – some are even tailored to specialized industry sectors like healthcare or engineering. These tools enhance our skill sets and enable us to deliver better service to our clients so our teams can focus on more strategic pursuits.

5. Continued value of writing. No matter what, at the end of the day, we all have to write. Whether it’s a tweet, an email, a public statement or back-end website items that influence a reputation, we have to continue to perfect the editorial process. It’s vital.
PR has never been more valuable and more relevant. Responding to these trends empowers us to continue to produce high-quality work that shapes debates, changes behaviors and supports business operations. Investing in building entrusting relationships will always be the best marketing tactic of them all.

The Feaery Group is our partner agency in Seattle, USA. Article originally published at PRGN.com

10 tips to PR success in Scandinavian media

05/08/2019By scandinaviancomChristina Rytter, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Scandinavian Communications

By Christina Rytter, Founder & Trusted Communications Advisor

These focus points are key to create positive PR coverage in Scandinavia:

1. Think through and create a real journalistic story from scratch for the Scandinavian markets – and then get your corporate or product messages to fit with a downplayed balance.

2. Write a local angled story for each Scandinavian market. Your PR core story for Scandinavia can be the same – but to really get it right, you then need to work out a local PR angle for each market; Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland etc. Understanding and acting on the small cultural differences between each Scandinavian market give you much greater PR results.

3. Work out a tailored media list for each Scandinavian country with key journalist from Tier 1 media depending on your target group.

4. Pick a broader range of media to get more volume, when you send out your press release – Scandinavia has a very narrow media structure with only few media in each category.

5. Work with exclusive sell-in of your press release / PR story. This means that you only talk in person with one leading key media at the time. It’s key for most Scandinavian journalists to get their own story with a unique angle. When you succeed with you PR sell-in. Wait for the agreed publication – and then go for at wide distribution of the press release to create a 2-waved PR effect. This can be very effectful!

6. Always work with a journalistic approach in your PR Press kit for Scandinavian media. A Marketing approach towards Scandinavian Tier 1 media is a sure dead end – and you press release will easily end up in the garbage can at the newsdesk.

7. Don’t expect to get any control over the final journalistic content in articles. Scandinavian journalists are very Independent – it’s just part of their DNA. You can approve you own quotes – and offer journalist a quality check of facts. Nothing more. Otherwise you could offend the journalist. This independence also means that your PR adviser rarely is present at face-to-face interviews with Scandinavian journalist.

8. Offer Media professional PR photos to strengthen the possibility of media coverage. This could be PR headshots of your company spokesperson or of your Product/Services. This must preferably be PR photos take for media in a journalistic context supporting the journalistic angle of your story – instead of traditional marketing photos.

9. Follow up on journalists in person on phone and email to secure sell-in of the story and final media coverage. In Scandinavia this is a very delicate balance between being proactive without being annoying for journalists, who have a very busy and tight work schedule and a lot of people approaching them every day.

10. Take into your planning that different Scandinavian media work with very different timing. If you go for a business daily, you might only need to approach the editor a couple of weeks before you like to see some media coverage. But if it’s a high-end lifestyle Magazine on print, you might need to talk to the editor 3-4 month ahead.

Need help with PR in Scandinavia?
Don’t hesitate to contact Scandinavian Communications if you need help. We are passioned with heart and mind to help you communicate with impact and leverage your business in the Scandinavian markets.

Why should blogging be a part of your PR strategy?

04/01/2019By scandinaviancomChristina Rytter, Content Marketing, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Public Relations Global Network, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media

By Akvile Vzesniauskaite, Social Media Project Manager at Adverum Communications

Nowadays, PR is much more than media relations, press releases or launch events. PR becomes a modern combination of classical and new communication trends – integrated, 360 degree PR strategy including visuals, digital solutions, and, of course, blogging. Blogs fit the taste of those who are looking for interesting pieces of news, non-traditional recommendations or educational material. Why else should one integrate blogging into PR strategy?

It is your own media channel. A blog is a media platform that belongs to a company or brand and provides for the ability to become a digital publisher in a cost-effective way. Having in mind that modern PR – as well as a modern audience – requires engaging content, blogs are the right solution: it allows you to deliver valuable information to a target audience, keeping it easily accessible and building a loyal audience or even a community.

Demonstrate your experience/Showcase your expertise. A blog can help represent a company, brand and create an image of experts working for and with them. If in a blog you regularly share experiences, hands-on insights and experts’ comments, it helps to create a bond between readers and a company/brand or an expert. Of course, to create and maintain such “relationship” with an audience, the blog has to offer useful and interesting information that can’t be found anywhere else. The success also is in the efforts to keep an ongoing dialogue with readers – discussions, FAQs and suggested topics have to be integrated in the content.

Your reputation online. Although sometimes underestimated, your online reputation has a huge impact on how an audience would interact with your brand or services. Nowadays, the web is often the primary source of information. Many customers choose not to trust a brand if they find a lot of negative information about it online, or no information at all. Having a blog or actively cooperating with bloggers helps to spread relevant information and even block the negative.

A blog can have a positive influence on your website’s visibility and traffic. If one of your PR objectives is to increase your website traffic, regular blogging can do wonders. It could have positive impact on website’s SEO score when combined with applicable keywords. Relevant content leads to more hits in search engines and builds higher credibility resulting in better perception of a brand or a company.

Fast way to share news and latest updates. There is one more positive trait of blogging – it allows you to reach the audience very quickly by just posting the information. When creating a PR strategy, think whether you will need to report important news, give advice to customers and clients, share experience or offer audience inspired content. Did you say “Yes” at least once? Then a blog might just be the way to do it.

Of course, such a channel is just a piece of a puzzle that composes a perfect PR strategy. But it is also one of the easiest ones to obtain – so if you still do not have a blog – give it a try (they will be popular for a while…).

Adverum Communications is our partner agency in Lithuania. Article originally published at PRGN.com

Why Your Business Needs a Blog

17/09/2018By scandinaviancomContent Marketing, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Public Relations Global Network, Social Media

By Judy Kuramata, Executive Director of Integrate Communications

Today’s media landscape is becoming increasingly dominated and disrupted by digital. It’s everywhere you turn. On the way to work, while eating breakfast and even when we’re with friends, we are constantly absorbing digital media and the endless amount of information technology provides.

Blogging is a highly-effective content marketing tool; it is no longer a “back stage” room to hold your content. It’s a space for you to have complete ownership over your brand’s story and the way it’s told. There are thousands of ways to target potential customers through blogging. Specifically, you sell context, not products. It’s great if your blog leads to a direct purchase, but more often, a blog’s purpose is to draw potential customers to your website.

So, who does your blog attract? Potential customers may not immediately contact you to purchase your products or services after they’ve read your blog, but search engines and keywords will, at least, draw them to your website.

Offer readers something valuable for free, using relevant keyword phrases they are searching for, and they may turn into a customer down the line.

Plus, when you provide thoughtful, free content, you might end up with completely new customers that you did not foresee. For example, an entrepreneur might be searching in Google for some quick tips on how to market her business online, and stumble upon a blog post written by your PR agency. She’s so impressed by the tips provided that she now wants to hire your agency to help her sell her product. She wasn’t originally looking into agencies, but because your blog provided valuable content, she was successfully converted into a customer.

A mixture of valuable context, consistent messages, effective keywords and timing are very important when getting started on your blog.

Now that you have valuable content, do make sure you have some way of monitoring and measuring your blog’s success. Your blog posts should be shared on your website, as well as your social media platforms. Track how much traffic the post brings to your website, how many ‘likes’ or ‘shares’ you receive on social media and how many inquiries come in.

Blogging requires strategy and implementation planning just as any other traditional marketing method does. By developing a target audience, creating the right content, being consistent and tracking, blogging can be a highly effective marketing tool for your business.

Integrate Communications is our partner agency in Japan. Article originally published at PRGN.com

7 PR Tips On Turning The Tide On Consumer Distrust

10/08/2018By scandinaviancomChristina Rytter, Crisis Communications, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Public Relations Global Network, Scandinavian Communications, Social Media, Strategic Communications

By Sheena Campbell-Royle, CEO, SCR – SCP

We came from a world where selling a product or service was all about how you positioned yourself and how you ‘sold’ your company, through advertising, marketing and PR where you told people what you thought they should know about your product. It was really all about you and how good you were. Now we are in a different global world where this is not enough, a world where the empowered consumer will only buy your services or products if he agrees with you and likes who you are, where your corporate values must be a match to his or her own ideas and they must be transparent and known about.

This is a big change and companies need to get their heads around what this means for them. Quality and price is not enough if what you say lacks credibility.

Consumers have rights and they now think about why they should put their trust in your company, and, as a company, you need to step up to this and make it known who you are, how you think, how you treat others and what your views on the world are.

It’s happening at all levels and forcing some companies who have lost consumer trust to re-think the strategy.

So here are some tips on what your company should be doing in PR terms to regain your consumers, clients and prospects trust and make sure you keep it.

Analyze carefully all aspects of what you are doing and how you are communicating to your audiences, your ‘voice’. Make sure all your company (people who work for you, suppliers and other audiences) understand your viewpoint and values and identify with them. Include your audiences in the analysis so that ideas are not imposed, but understood and complied with.
Define your position on issues like environment, social issues, even politics. This may be a risk, but being neutral is often seen as aligning with the ‘bad guys’. Look at your social network presence and take into account that some social networks have come under severe criticism. Be careful that consumers don’t see you as part and parcel of these errors, so put transparency high on your ‘to do’ list because trust is tantamount. The culture you breathe in your company needs to speak of authenticity and transparency, this will make consumers feel their needs are being met and less likely to feel they’re always being ‘sold to’.
Get your name to appear and tell people who you are in established newspapers and publications. Get noticed and get your opinion out there, support your corporate values and issues which you think interest and please your audiences. In our era of ‘fake news’, people still trust traditional and digital media with solid reputations.
Make sure your company is meeting its consumers or clients on their terms by making your website and social pages a very positive experience. If a review is left or customer help asked for, ensure that they leave your site or social page feeling reassured and feeling you care about them, that their opinion matters. But this must be real, this is not just the face, this translates into real actions and is demonstrated. Know that each consumer ‘touch’ is an opportunity to humanize your company making it easier for consumers to put their trust into what you do.
Try to engage with ‘earned content’. If you see a consumer interacting with your product, use this, making it public (always after asking and receiving permission) so that others can identify with the action and trust in it.
Offer useful information to your consumers or clients related to your product, service or sector. You could for example use a specific place on your website and social platforms for your customers, clients to ask what they want to learn and you could ask them what they would like to know about.
Last of all, keep your promises. Do what you say you are going to do and live your corporate values making them deep rooted in your company’s ADN

To conclude, flip the coin, be more aware as a company of what the needs and desires of your consumers, clients or prospects are and try to meet them.

SCR-SCP is our partner agency in Spain. Article originally published at PRGN.com

9 Reasons Why Every Company Should Invest in PR

25/06/2018By scandinaviancomContent Marketing, Management Communications, PR, PR Tips & Trends, Strategic Communications

By Anne A. Buchanan, President of Buchanan Public Relations

Public relations has long been a powerful marketing tool for companies. In today’s digital environment, its impact is greater than ever.
Here are nine reasons why every company should be investing in PR:

1. Allows a company to own and manage its narrative. Companies that fail to invest in PR are essentially ceding their narrative to others – the media, unhappy customers, investors, and competitors, among others. Why would you want outsiders to fill in the blanks of a story you should be authoring yourself?

2. Helps an organization amplify its message. A robust PR program typically includes a media relations component. Working regularly with journalists who cover your industry ensures that your company is receiving its share of earned media, a powerful way to share your message.

3. Is custom-made for content sharing. Long before “content creation” became a buzzword, PR professionals were mining company assets to find newsworthy stories and opportunities. If you think your company isn’t doing enough content creation or sharing, start with your PR team. It knows, better than most marketing professionals, how to identify content that will resonate with stakeholders.

4. Permits a company to build authentic relationships with stakeholders. Unlike traditional advertising, which is often a one-way dialogue between a brand and its customers, PR is built around creating and nurturing two-way relationships.

5. Complements a company’s sales efforts. Nothing is more powerful in cinching a sale than an objective, third-party endorsement of your company, which is what earned media gives you. There will always be a need for sales materials and programs, but they become more powerful when PR is used to amplify the message.

6. Helps with recruitment. With a significant portion of the boomer workforce poised to begin exiting, the war for talent will only intensify. PR allows companies a way to brand themselves as employers of choice and to communicate the type of work environment they cultivate.

7. Puts capital in the bank for a future downturn or crisis. You don’t want your first interaction with the media to be when your company is at its worst. Investing in regular public relations ensures that crucial relationships are already in place when you might need support.

8. Enhances a Company’s SEO. Online earned media can have a powerful impact on SEO and keyword rankings. PR teams that work to optimize the content they are sharing can significantly contribute to their organization’s SEO efforts.

9. Forces a company to continually refine its message. Companies that invest in PR are ensuring that their story is constantly being reviewed and refreshed. Not only is that attractive to customers, prospects and search engines, but it keeps an organization sharp and continually thinking about the messages it is sharing with stakeholders.

Buchanan Public Relations is our partner agency in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). Article originally published at PRGN.com

Theme: Scandinavians – similar, but not the same.