A company needs a CSR plan!

 

Any company that makes a profit should support the CSR idea. “CSR is a process with the aim to embrace responsibility for the company’s actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders”.

 

In my opinion, a company is easily preferred or mostly supported if their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts are high. I believe any company that considers their CSR/CSI efforts as a goal, will in turn receive a lot more support.

 

Giving back not only shows that the company cares for its surrounding community, but it also convinces most customers to support their company above others as it has rewards for those in need.

 

CSR should be a top goal within the management levels; management should implement ways of creating an environmentally friendly office, supporting its community or even attain the BEE Scorecard as effort to support those who are not financially stable.

 

I believe it should be up to a PR to decide, implement and evaluate a client’s CSR efforts, and discuss how often or what tools and models should be used in order for our clients to benefit from giving back Diana Laverdure explains that “many companies don’t realize is that their good deeds can also generate broad publicity coverage, further enhancing your corporate reputation and brand image”.

 

Need more reasons as to why a company should invest in CSR? Read the six business reasons why companies should embrace corporate social responsibility- http://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2012/02/21/six-reasons-companies-should-embrace-csr/

 

What makes a good PR?

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I always say we can gain a client today, and lose it tomorrow. This simply means a PR should be great at catching a new client but need to sustain, communicate and create publicity to keep most clients happy.

“You communicate, you communicate, and then you communicate some more. Consistency, simplicity and repetition is what it’s all about” says Jack Welch.

PR is all about using primary channels to communicate with current or future customers, show off your client’s services or products, and build relationships with media.

To understand PR, the simplest of terms is, PR is earned space whereas advertising is bought space. A PR would work a lot harder than advertisers, as we don’t pay for coverage, we pitch for coverage.

A great PR practitioner would use its skills to promote new brands, reviving an old brand, change the clients positioning in the market, create a name, building a good corporate reputation, establish a trend or market, build awareness, or even issues management.

In my opinion, any PR employee should be an extravert, willing to build friendships and work that extra hour if its means your client could be featured.

According to Laura Boon, “there are many different types of PR you can practise to develop and protect your brand’s public profile, from media relations, corporate social investment to internal communications”, it’s up to us to decided which tool best works and which area of PR we fit in to.

I believe what makes a good PR , is the ability and skills to use all types of PR to sustain, grow and put positive spotlights on our clients.