Public Relations Practices

[HobbieRogue4]

• Tell the truth, to the best of your knowledge.
  This means freely admitting when your knowledge is incorrect or incomplete.
• Avoid getting personal with anyone but yourself.
  Personal insights sometimes add an 'honest' edge to PR, but overuse causes 'egotism' perceptions.
• Be ready to 'lose.'
  Rebuttals to save face are almost never as clever or as cutting as you would like to believe. Admit you've already lost, and walk away.
• Less is more.
  Stay out of the limelight whenever possible.

I am no expert on PR, merely an observer. In effect, 'less is more' when it comes to dealing with the public. One need only look to alliances with sterling public profiles such as Elysium, hirr, RaH, ToT, and others to realize as much.

What do you think are positive and/or negative PR practices?

[Eol]

Amen.

[SilverSmoke]

I am your idol

For people who post often enough on behalf of an alliance that their personality and style become recognised, I would suggest these....

Don't take personal credit
Credit for success goes either to the members of your alliance, or other individuals that you name, thereby increasing their standing when they deal with other alliances and simultaneously their morale.

Don't assign personal blame
The obvious corollary. Never blame people (by name) within your own alliance, or even imply that specific errors were attributable to individuals. That's for you to sort out privately. This, of course, doesn't apply to individuals within other alliances :)

Be able to back up accusations
This doesn't mean having enough information to persuade a hostile audience. Just as long as you have enough info that they (the people you accused) know you've gottem. This puts them in a real quandary...do they deny it when you may not have revealed all the info you've got? The longer they drag it out from then on, the worse they look.

Take responsibility for errors
Once somebody's caught you in something, the best advice is to take personal responsibility. Remeber, your job as a spokesperson is to minimise problems and the best way to do it is end the thread quickly and/or positively. Avoiding or cynically failing to deal with the accusation just drags threads out as people get annoyed with your disingenuous denials. Own up to it, apologise if you have to, and (a) people will think more of you while (b) the furore ends more quickly, causing less damage

Don't flame
Only very very rarely should you bring out the knives. If you get angry, express it in cold fury as you drive your points home. Never sink down to their level. Rip their main points apart with icy logic.

If you almost never use abuse, when you actually DO use it the impact will be greater. Keep it for special occasions, and make sure it fits the actions that provoked you - ie explain why you think they're *******s.

Don't sweat the small things
You waste time dissecting everything someone says in minute detail. It just drags out the thread by creating numerous lines of argument where there might have been one or two before, gives other people an excuse to join in, bores and irritates others, and increases your own chances of error. Stick to the things that matter, and let the rest go.


McIvan
BlueTuba

[Xeno]

Some of you mite now me as benny the groin, sammy the shnoz, uuaahh elma da fudd, tubby the tuba, and i am known by the people who know me the best as the ****in doctor - but that's beside the point here.

Golden rule:
Avoid bragging about your accomplishements. Keep your head low, and hopefully others will brag on your behalf. It's worth ten times more to have someone post "OMG Fury carried out a kickass attack today" than having a Fury executive posting "OMG we are so friggin' awsome because of our elite tactics".


Xeno

[Salomo]

Originally posted by HobbieRogue4

• Tell the truth, to the best of your knowledge.
  This means freely admitting when your knowledge is incorrect or incomplete.
• Avoid getting personal with anyone but yourself.
  Personal insights sometimes add an 'honest' edge to PR, but overuse causes 'egotism' perceptions.
• Be ready to 'lose.'
  Rebuttals to save face are almost never as clever or as cutting as you would like to believe. Admit you've already lost, and walk away.
• Less is more.
  Stay out of the limelight whenever possible.

I am no expert on PR, merely an observer. In effect, 'less is more' when it comes to dealing with the public. One need only look to alliances with sterling public profiles such as Elysium, hirr, RaH, ToT, and others to realize as much.

What do you think are positive and/or negative PR practices?

those alliances you named basically have no public PR anymore, and imo their good public profiles hence have nothing to do with public PR and are hence irelevant.

If you use public PR in 9 out of 10 cases your image will also suffer at least a little. Fights on the boards in that aspect are no different than fights in PA: You can't expect to win without any losses. Still they are an important battlefield for PA and if you're afraid of losss you shouldn't play PA.

Concerning your suggestions for good PR: I disagree with them in general. It's good if you appear to act like you described there, but that doesn't mean you actually have to act that way.

[Salomo]

Originally posted by McIvan
For people who post often enough on behalf of an alliance that their personality and style become recognised, I would suggest these....

Don't take personal credit
Credit for success goes either to the members of your alliance, or other individuals that you name, thereby increasing their standing when they deal with other alliances and simultaneously their morale.

Don't assign personal blame
The obvious corollary. Never blame people (by name) within your own alliance, or even imply that specific errors were attributable to individuals. That's for you to sort out privately. This, of course, doesn't apply to individuals within other alliances

Be able to back up accusations
This doesn't mean having enough information to persuade a hostile audience. Just as long as you have enough info that they (the people you accused) know you've gottem. This puts them in a real quandary...do they deny it when you may not have revealed all the info you've got? The longer they drag it out from then on, the worse they look.

Take responsibility for errors
Once somebody's caught you in something, the best advice is to take personal responsibility. Remeber, your job as a spokesperson is to minimise problems and the best way to do it is end the thread quickly and/or positively. Avoiding or cynically failing to deal with the accusation just drags threads out as people get annoyed with your disingenuous denials. Own up to it, apologise if you have to, and (a) people will think more of you while (b) the furore ends more quickly, causing less damage

Don't flame
Only very very rarely should you bring out the knives. If you get angry, express it in cold fury as you drive your points home. Never sink down to their level. Rip their main points apart with icy logic.

If you almost never use abuse, when you actually DO use it the impact will be greater. Keep it for special occasions, and make sure it fits the actions that provoked you - ie explain why you think they're *******s.

Don't sweat the small things
You waste time dissecting everything someone says in minute detail. It just drags out the thread by creating numerous lines of argument where there might have been one or two before, gives other people an excuse to join in, bores and irritates others, and increases your own chances of error. Stick to the things that matter, and let the rest go.


McIvan
BlueTuba

I'd add to this

Disguise your intent
No one likes to be manipulated, yet PR allways is about manipulating opinions, thoughts, and feelings. If you're too obvious about what you want to do, the automatic "anti-influence-protection" starts up and you loose. The best disguise is one that actually makes people want to read and comment, hence making them indirectly wanting to be influenced.

Keep in mind who you're writing for
In PR-discussion you will hardly ever be able to convince your oponent with your arguments. Hence very often you're not really trying to reach the oponent but the peons reading the thread.

Keep controll over your discussions
In public PR you want to have your arguments and posts hit where they're supposed to, and don't want others to hit you. Even if you're burning to reply to a specific reply or part of a reply, if that leads you away from your point or even worse can lead to the other side scoring, just ignore it. (Sid prolly is the best example of this tactic, though he usually has perfect circumstances for the ignoring.)

[lokken]

Never lie.

[Vaio]

Ignore the flames you get when you are right and you know you are right (i've discovered this recently)

Vaio

[xtothez]

Nice post there Hobbie, there are some obvious things there that certain people around here would do well to take on board, myself included.

After reading AD for so long, it does become apparent that certain individuals only come here specifically to start a fight/flamewar/spam competition. I'm sure you know who you are, I knew to myself when I used to do it.
Unfortunately we've passed the point were people care. All of this will be gone in a few weeks. Who will care then if someone thinks of them as a loudmouth, twat, multi or bot user? Best example that comes to mind is the recent changes to AllFather's sig.
We're nearing the endgame now, this is point that sorts the attention seekers from the good characters. Remember what you see. You may be encountering some of these people again...

[hAl]

Originally posted by lokken
Never lie.

or at least don't get caught on some lie.

hAl

[Kileman]

Those who attack peoples character rather than there argument love the ****
________
Yamaha ttr90

[Hardin]

Originally posted by Kileman
Those who attack peoples character rather than there argument love the ****

Attack people's planet > attack people's arguement > attack people's character

[Patrician]

Originally posted by hAl


or at least don't get caught on some lie.

hAl

hAl wins.

[bagg]

Originally posted by Patrician


hAl wins.

LIES!!!!

no but seriously nice post and wouldnt it be nice if everyone who posted threads here followed them

mind u it might well never happen like xtothez said 'who cares?'

pity really

I suppose not talking about fibs leaves this a bit incomplete.

Surround lies with truth
Never lie would be nice, but you can't always do it. If you absolutely must tell an untruth, always add in as much supporting evidence that is verifiably true as possible. Present the actual lie in such a way that a reasonable person could draw the same conclusion from the verifiable evidence presented, even though you happen to know it's not true.

I agree wholeheartedly with Salomo's comments. The style of posting should be:

1. Present truthful and verifiable facts, to the extent possible
2. Draw a reasonable conclusion from them that suits your position in language that doesn't invite anyone to flame you.

McIvan
BlueTuba