Mutually Beneficial Relationships

It is more important today than ever before to understand, measure and improve your relationships with your local community. PR in general is all about relationships, but it is also vital to understand why your neighbors are so important.

As I discussed in my last post discussing the book Measure What Matters, social media has introduced an entirely new definition of communication. Communities now consist not only of organizations in close proximity to your business, but also virtually and through influential stakeholders. These influencers can include internal communities of customers, vendors, partners, external advocates, nongovernmental organizations and any other community with which your business has a relationship.

We know how important mutually beneficial relationships are in the PR industry. These relationships can influence all successes and failures of your organization. If you ignore the communities looking for answers from your organization, then your organization is bound to see a decline in the value of mutually beneficial relationships with influential stakeholders. If your organization is consistently responding and participating in the conversations the communities of influencers are participating in, then these communities are bound to have your organizations back during a crisis situation.

It's all about relationships. We hear this on a daily basis. If you don't understand the importance of maintaining these relationships, taking the time to understand them, measuring the involvement of your influencers and continuously work to improve these relationships, then your organization is bound to see unwanted residual effects.