Maxim Behar's Blog, page 18

Maxim Behar Won the Employer Brand Leader of the Year Award

Maxim Behar won first place in the Employer Brand Leader category at the prestigious Employer Branding Awards. Maxim's merit is that he successfully manages the leading PR agency M3 Communications Group, Inc. for 25 years. The award was given by Nadia Marinova - Jury Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of b2b Media, who are the organizers of the event.

His achievements as a former President of the ICCO World PR Organization and his inherent talent as the author of the "The Global PR Revolution", published in Bulgaria and the USA, have made an impressive contribution.

"When I created M3 Communications Group, Inc., I had one primary goal - to work with happy people. 25 years later, I see that dream has come true. Our employees are not only happy and motivated but also real leaders. This is the future for all companies - to create leaders who are not afraid to make decisions and can handle any situation", said Maxim after receiving the Employer Brand Leader of the Year award.

Professor Lyubomir Stoykov with a review of "The Global PR Revolution"

The positive opinions and comments from experts in the field followed straight away after the incredible success of the best-selling book "The Global PR Revolution". One of them is the appraisal of Professor Lyubomir Stoykov, which he shared with the numerous audience at the official book premiere in Bulgaria.

The PR expert gave his opinion about the new book by author Maxim Behar, who has established himself as a leader in the global PR industry for 25 years, according to many well-known professionals. The professor examined themes in��the book like the death of the press release, fake news, the social media revolution and the rebellion against traditional media. Lyubomir Stoykov expressed his��full��admiration for the book, which contains the opinions of 100 of the most famous PR experts from 65 countries from 6 continents.

The professor described the book as one of the best in the field of PR worldwide, saying that- "Every word in this text is in place. Ten of them, however, correctly and impressively mark PR in the era of the social media revolution. The author has superbly synthesized them: change, media, merger, speed, transparency, integrity, education, measurement, language, risks. "

Read the full review��HERE.

After the End of Journalism ��� The Revolution that Turned PR Experts into Publishers, Editors, and Reporters

Throughout all those years that I���ve spent in PR business, I���ve been repeating almost every day that the players in this game should be honest, reputable and creative. That was our business���s peremptory mantra ��� do your job professionally, come up with ideas (whenever you can), be honorable (if you can) and say the truth (any way you can). And everything, absolutely everything in this business was in its place.

The client, very figuratively and loosely described, used to knock on the door of our office, timidly stepping forward and perplexedly saying: ���I��� I found out that��� you are making PR here��� can you help me increase my sales��� and if it is possible, to arrange one or two interviews with me somewhere.��� Well, when this used to happen, all of us in the office, we exhilaratingly started working as we have for years. And then ��� a press conference, product presentation, media breakfast, a visit to the factory or the office, two press releases a month��� The same tools for so many different clients. Sometimes it all seemed to me like an assembly line business in a factory. And it was the same for all of us.

Well, naturally, there were big international companies that knew very clearly exactly what they want from a PR company, knew very clearly how their project should be done and of course ��� they had the same standards for Bulgaria as they had for any other country. Then��� the business was becoming a little more interesting, the swing, the budgets, and the projects were a little bit different, not to say large-scale, but the tools and the approach were the same. Classic media, classic PR, classic messages.

Until the Day X came ��� February 4, 2004, the sacred date that changed the world. For one pretty simple reason ��� it unified all popular communication services known by then: messages, chats, videos, and photos, in just one platform, in just one place. Practically, one media called Facebook.
I don���t dramatize this date or this media as much, but it was the key to change in our business that in my new book I call a ���revolution��� and I believe that it truly is.
There are several important reasons for this.

In the first place ��� the ownership over the media changed drastically. Fifteen years ago, media divided only into state and private. All over the world.

Facebook, and later on the other social media ��� Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and many others, allowed their billions of users to write, share, like or hate. They gave them something that no one until that moment had complete and uncontrolled access to ��� the right to own a media. And while for the people from downtown Sofia or the suburbans, from Japan or Australia, from large India to the tiny Vatican this was a chance to share, to write or to meet as much as they want, for our business it was a completely different picture.

Here comes the second important reason for the revolutionary change in our profession. From typical consultants and organizers of press conferences, for a few days, the PR experts turned into a strange amalgam of publishers, editors, and reporters. Publishers ��� because this is the main characteristic of someone who owns a media. Editors ��� because we could hardly imagine a modern PR expert who does not pay attention to every comma in the text they write or ��� naturally ��� they publish on behalf of their clients or even under their name. And finally, reporters because the essence of modern PR communication is telling stories, not any stories, but ones that contain news and unknown facts and events.

I remember well how at the end of the 20th century I was giving interviews all over saying how newspapers are dying and will be replaced by online media, that will occupy their territory so that everybody will believe them. Even the word social was missing in the dictionary of the common strategist, who was trying to evaluate what will happen in the new media era. It was not so hard to predict because of several reasons which even then, 20 years ago were clear. Online media was lightning fast, even then it was interactive, meaning everyone had the chance to express their opinion under every post and it was fairly easy to measure the effect of each advertisement and each text.
So then, my phones wouldn���t stop ringing, my ex-colleagues (I spent 15 great years in journalism), would not so friendly come at me with objurgations that I am almost predicting the end of their profession. At this time, I did not even think of that, I only thought of newspaper paper and distribution, but now it has really happened ��� the end of journalism as we know it and as hundreds of millions of people if not billions would still want it to be. There is no risk to offend the editors of this wonderful magazine ��� they have long ago embraced the online and social media and are an example of a combination of the two kinds of journalism ��� passive and interactive.

Of course, one of the most important changes, maybe the most important one, in our business is the fact that PR experts from traditional consultants, waiting for the final decision of their client for publishing this or that text, more and more dramatically are becoming people, who should make final decisions fast.

In the newspaper era, the time was as stretchy as Turkish delight. In those very careless times, from my perspective now, we had from 8 to 10 hours to make a decision, to react to a negative publication or any mentioning of our client���s name. Now we don���t even have 10 minutes, if it does not meet a fast and professional response, every word in social media can cause an avalanche of opinions, that can ruin the reputation of a client, a product, a brand or a service.

Exactly these days this reaction is placed in the hands of the PR experts and this means not only a much bigger responsibility but a great amount of new knowledge, daily education, very broad general knowledge, and precise professionalism. A fast but unprofessional reaction can very often cause more damage than keeping silence and let things settle.

And finally, one very important historical change in our business. The irrevocable merge of the three elements of the public communication business ��� advertising, PR and digital marketing. Of course, social media caused this unification, because practically, everyone rushed to prove that they can complete the best project for their client. The reason is precisely that everyone had access to the media and they started thinking they are the editor-in-chief in it. And against the background of the many discussions about how this unified future business will be called and who will have the leading role in it, I state that this will be PR business and I have two strong arguments: the need of crisis management will be increasing and the clients will need management of their brands and their texts. Who else if not PR business is the king of handling crisis and managing intelligent, creative and impactful content���

And at the end ��� the biggest and most important change. PR business is forever business for leaders only. Having said that, I do not mean the higher management, the CEOs or any other ���boss���. Of course, I mean every PR expert who is already a leader of their own media, projects, their ethics, and their corporate loyalty. Simply a modern leader.

THE POWER OF STORYTELLING

One of social media���s greatest changes to modern-day PR is the rising importance of storytelling.
This book has already pointed out that the job of today���s PR professional is now invariably connected with the creation of news and interesting stories.

Yet we cannot tell or ���announce��� a news story the way a journalist would. It would be boring, formal, or unnecessary to ���report��� a story about a client of ours as a reporter would.
We can���t just say, ���This pen is great, and consumers should buy it!��� We ought to wrap up this message and create not only a convincing, but an interesting story around it.

Here I am, improvising on the spot:
A lady dropped her pen in the street, it was raining heavily, and a gentleman picked it up and said, ���May I have your number?���

She was flattered, gave her number, he wrote it on his hand, and despite the torrential rain, the ink lasted because it lasts forever, etc., etc. This story could be about a phone number or anything else that would make sense, keeping the target audience in mind.

We should be able to tell some kind of a news story in such a way that the reader wouldn���t think, ���Ha, it���s so obvious that this is a paid ad!��� That would be too direct, and it would be repulsive.
Whereas when the story has added value for the readers, it will be perceived in a totally different way. Achieving that feeling is a huge part of our business nowadays.

Stories today are getting more and more visual. They will probably become short videos soon. A lot of people are doing that already, the so-called vloggers, but these are mostly amateur attempts. They are yet to become top-notch video stories.

Indeed, one day not too far ahead into the future, all things will be wrapped inside visuals and audio, not so much in written word, to such a degree that everything will be real time.

My long-term forecast has been that two industries are going to experience a giant boost as a result of these developments���the fashion industry and the optical lenses industry.

Why the fashion industry? Because people are going to care a whole lot more about how they look, how they are dressed, and their overall appearance. There will be no voice calls anymore, since phones will offer video instead. I���m sure that if you do a video call early in the morning, you will get up earlier to shower and get dressed.
Technology is developing so rapidly ahead that in just a few years, there probably won���t be even a video button on your phone���you will have a video call by default. Someone calls, you pick up, and they can see you immediately.
The second industry that will experience a giant boom because of these developments, in my view, will be optical lenses. Because sooner or later all devices that we use today���laptops, smartphones, tablets���will be incorporated into smart glasses (lenses).

At that point, every single person will be wearing glasses, because that���s where their computer display will be.
Google already attempted it with Google Glass. I tested it for a while; it wasn���t the best. But that is going to happen someday soon.This is why the power of storytelling���today in text, and already in visuals���will be the defining feature of PR following the social media revolution.

Storytelling was never an essential part of PR before social media, because it was the bailiwick of journalists.
We used to feed material to the journalists, but classic PR never dealt with all that: writing an article, sending it to a journalist, and telling them, ���Publish this!��� because that was beyond any ethical and professional norms.
Now that we have media, it is very different���going back once again to the definition that today���s PR expert is the perfect mix of a publisher, editor, and reporter.

We already have the opportunity to write and publish stories about the products and services of our clients. That���s one more revolutionary development in the PR industry today.

It wasn���t typical for a PR expert to draft stories. They were supposed to convey news and put forth the advantages or qualities of the products they represented.

That���s why it is fair to say that storytelling is new, uncharted territory for the PR industry.

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Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

You can check all the options on how to buy the book at��www.globalprbook.com

or follow all the news at��https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalPrRevolution/��or��https://twitter.com/BeharPRBook

AN ARMY OF AMATEURS

With all that said, an army of amateurs has taken over the media realm as a result of the social media revolution.
In this particular sense, the ���amateurs��� are all those billions of users who don���t know how to handle the written word. They simply aren���t used to using it, yet all of them are on social media, which for the most part remains a textual environment.

A virtually unlimited number of people who had never communicated by the means of the written word before have emerged everywhere, and this is a great source of stress for professional communicators as well as for the amateurs themselves.

An amateur in written communication who has been let into the social media realm is like a person who drives a car but doesn���t have a driving license. They get in the car, and in the best-case scenario, they might barely stay on the road without hitting anybody. In the worst-case scenario, they might cause an accident, they could hit and kill somebody, they could kill themselves, etc.

In exactly the same way, a person who has never dealt with the written word for communication all of a sudden logs into Facebook and starts engaging with others. If their writing skills are poor, their posts will be filled with typos, poor grammar, and odd word choices. Other social media users who view these posts will be skeptical of��the poster���s intelligence and competence���and if this amateur is writing content for an organization, this will all reflect poorly on their employer as the audience questions their credibility and professionalism. All of this erodes public opinion of the poster and/or the company they represent.

Another obvious sign of an amateur is poor social etiquette. Many behaviors are unacceptable in face-to-face interactions, yet so many people fail to observe basic manners online, often resulting in badmouthing, slurring, even harassing their fellow social media users. The amateurs on social media don���t have the tactfulness, desire, habit, or instinct to hear the opinions of others and to debate and discuss them. This situation often leads to conflicts, even personal or professional disasters.

The upside is that, nonetheless, a growing number of people from all around the world are learning how to communicate thanks to social media. The emergence of social media is a powerful, enormous educational process.
Billions of people are now learning how to write���not just in terms of actual writing, but in terms of communicating, discussing, debating, and presenting their arguments in writing.

The amateurs are all those social media users who aren���t professional writers or professional communicators.
Those who fail to learn how to write and communicate properly in the new environment will fall behind on social media.

��

Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

You can check all the options on how to buy the book at��www.globalprbook.com

or follow all the news at��https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalPrRevolution/��or��https://twitter.com/BeharPRBook

A BRAVE NEW TRANSPARENT WORLD

The tsunami of social media that has conquered global communications
within a few years has swept away privacy, once predominant,
and has laid the groundwork for a new world where everything is
public���or is rapidly becoming so���and where everything is transparent���
or is about to be.
Welcome to the World of Total Transparency!
It might seem scary, but it will certainly be a better world.
Though, nobody is really obliged to be transparent in such an era.
Transparency remains a selectable feature, a matter of choice for
the individual.
However, when it comes to the corporate world, there isn���t a choice
anymore���there are no opt-outs from TT. A corporation���s sustainability
depends on transparency in this competitive world.
Modern-day consumer awareness has reached such staggering levels
that consumers get to know everything about a certain product
and the corporation producing it. If consumers are not informed the
same minute about any changes or alterations, they may never purchase
your product again.
Brands are no longer the property of the companies, but of the
consumers, and consumer power over brands is enormous.
As Paul Holmes has put it, and as I firmly believe: ���A brand is what
people say about you when you are not in the room.���

There is no way to avoid total transparency anymore, at least when it comes to doing business. It is absolutely necessary and mandatory.

��

Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

You can check all the options on how to buy the book at��www.globalprbook.com

or follow all the news at��https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalPrRevolution/��or��https://twitter.com/BeharPRBook

THE SKILLS OF TODAY

Which are the most valuable skills for a PR expert against the back��drop of this transformation of the PR office?
This book has already emphasized my Rule Number One: that even the worst decision is better than no decision at all, a decision that hasn���t been made.

One of the most cherished skills and qualities of a PR expert today is a quick reaction, the ability to assume responsibility very quickly!

This is because everything has become a function of time; every��thing is connected with time. That goes for any kind of regular com��munication, not just for crisis management.
If you have to react on behalf of your client, to defend your client, or to promote your client, time is of the utmost essence.

If you take your time, or delay thinking or coordinating the response with your client, a lot more things might happen in the meantime.

This is why nowadays we bear a much greater responsibility; we are much more important decision-makers, than we were before the social media revolution.

You must react as quickly as you would if you were your own cli��ent. Cases when you actually have time to consult with your client are exceedingly rare today, because news and comment feeds keep rolling in the meantime.
This book never set out to paint too rosy a picture of the PR industry after the social media revolution. There are seemingly negative conse��quences of this revolutionary change. One, of course, is the incessant danger of getting fooled and tricked by fake news, of not having suffi��cient time to verify whether a news story is true, to fact-check its details.

However, I am certain that fake news is going to begin to die, because at the end of the day, social media is getting so personal��ized that nobody will dare produce fake news anymore because they might go to prison.
Fake news remains a major risk, though, which is why people need to be much more erudite, educated, and knowledgeable, which requires much better training and preparation.

Regardless of how good you are at googling things, or doing more sophisticated online research in the oceans of available information, as a PR expert of today���s reality, your head must be full of knowledge, thanks to which you would be able to make a very fast but adequate decision.

That is why I think that now is the time of the knowledgeable peo��ple in PR.
Now is not the time of the ���searching��� people or those who can goo��gle something, because today even a three-year-old kid could do that.

Now is the time of knowledgeable people who have received a good education, and have undergone proper training, and are mentally prepared to assume responsibility for making immediate decisions.

��

Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

You can check all the options on how to buy the book at��www.globalprbook.com

or follow all the news at��https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalPrRevolution/��or��https://twitter.com/BeharPRBook

WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?

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One of the overarching���and overwhelming, really���traits of the social media revolution is the fact that billions of media owners have emerged thanks to the opportunity to run a social media page, pro��file, channel, whatever. PR companies must be absolutely aware of who those people are.

Of course, this development has occurred against the backdrop of another intriguing merger that has already materialized���that of traditional media with ���traditional online media,��� a.k.a. their own websites.

Traditional media have been dependent on their websites for a long time now. Even the largest international newspaper has been relying for its survival much more on its website than on its print edition.

A large number of the surviving press outlets exist solely thanks to their websites, because a print medium is not a dynamic media platform updated by the minute. Plus, it is a lot more susceptible to bankruptcy for purely economic reasons.

Of course, this first merger of traditional media with their own websites has hardly gone smoothly. One of the gravest mis��takes has been the failure to adapt identical content to the different environments.

Even today, as they are struggling for survival, many of the tra��ditional media, regardless of the merger with their online divisions, still do copy-pastes of their print stories, instead of adapting them for online (not to mention the need to adapt to the social platforms!). Luckily, if the merger with their online outlet has materialized, when they hire experts, they can adapt their writing and publishing style pretty fast.

It���s not limited to newspapers���it���s the same with TV and radio. There is hardly a decent radio station that doesn���t have a proper web��site that���s updated regularly.

And what is the effect? The emergence of billions of social media users, owning media. However, this has not eclipsed concerns over the ownership of the traditional media gone digital���in both the developed countries where media is bought or already owned by major corporations and in the developing world, including fledging

new democracies, where media often gets snatched up by ruthless oligarchs.

Yet in the new media realm, regardless of their buyouts, even large corporations or hefty oligarchs can hardly boast 100 percent control over the media content of the outlets they own, simply because access to that media���s online platform cannot be limited only to them.

Because if a present-day media outlet isn���t interactive, if it doesn���t give people the opportunity to debate on any topic, or readers the ability to express opinions differing from the position of the pub��lisher, that medium is going downhill, at least from a purely financial point of view. Nobody is going to read it anymore.

Even in post-Communist Eastern Europe, which has become noto��rious for its oligarchs, one can hardly think of a media outlet banning differing opinions as supplements (comments) to the main news stories that outlet publishes. A media outlet like that simply has no future.

Of course, on the other hand, the evident downside is that the own��ership of media is influencing the editorial policies more and more.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution that ensures free��dom of speech was adopted a little over two centuries ago, yet it seems as if that happened light years away���because today���s media doesn���t have much in common with the media that existed back then in America and Britain.

Regardless of how ruthless of a media owner you might be, the more staunchly your outlet focuses on defending and promoting the owner���s business or political interests, the more insignificant that outlet will become, and the less readership it will have.

A media outlet like that could actually still have many readers, clicks, likes, etc., but it will not be trustworthy. And the main thing media are supposed to sell is trust.

With solely traditional media, there is still an opportunity to do that, to propagate your interests and nothing else. Say, a multimil��lionaire buys a couple of newspapers or a TV channel somewhere in the world and starts promoting his or her actions or products in those papers or channels.

OK, good job. However, the reader and viewer of today have other channels for information and usually prefer them. The reader is not

going to rely solely on those papers and TV channels to stay properly informed about a topic.

Even if a corporate or oligarchy owner of a media outlet isn���t inter��ested in making a profit from it, they are still interested in their outlet being perceived as trustworthy.

The point is that in the online environment, and especially now in the social media environment, there is no way for a media outlet to solely feature the agenda of its owner.

The social media environment is bound to force that owner to give an opportunity for people to react and interact, share their views and opinions, whether commenting on the media website itself, or on Facebook.

That���s one great advantage of the social media era.

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Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

You can check all the options on how to buy the book at��www.globalprbook.com

or follow all the news at��https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalPrRevolution/��or��https://twitter.com/BeharPRBook

ALWAYS PREPARED: THE LESS-THAN-10-MINUTES RESPONSE RULE

All these things have affected our industry so dramatically that PR experts must be excellently trained and prepared for all kinds of contingencies.

Nowadays, some 60���70 percent of our clients turn to us as PR consultants���and it seems to be exactly the same everywhere in the world���for two main reasons: crisis management and reputation management.

The two often overlap. Not always, though. Sometimes an organization has no reputation whatsoever but strives to become popular and established. Today, that is the easiest thing to do���you create your social media profiles, hire professionals, they start writing about you or on your behalf and work on professionally engaging with the organization���s target audience.

PR experts need to be brilliantly trained and prepared. That���s not just good sense���there are very concrete and powerful reasons for that.

First, a mere ten years ago, we used to have plenty of time on our hands to solve a crisis. Usually, we used to enjoy almost an entire day to do that.

You���d get up in the morning, grab the newspaper, and see that someone had written something against a client of yours.

You would give your client a call and say, ���Well, here is a bad article about you.��� They would reply, ���Come to my office so we can figure out how to handle it.���

Then you would go and have lunch with the client. In the afternoon, you would issue a press release. At 5 or 6 p.m., you would meet with reporters to tell them that what had been written was not true, and so on.

We used to have between ten and twelve hours to solve a crisis.

Now we don���t even have ten minutes!

The moment a client of ours suffers a blow somewhere, we have to respond immediately. We do that every single day in our office by monitoring social networks, even at 5 a.m. If any of our clients have been affected in any way, we���ve got to react. If the client has done wrong, we have to apologize on their behalf, quite naturally. If the client has been wronged, we have to disprove whatever false allegations or perceptions there might be about them.

This requires an entirely different mindset, training, and level of preparedness.

It requires an understanding that there is no difference between PR and social media anymore. From the point of view of a top-notch PR expert, they have become one and the same thing.

Many people come to our office and say, ���I don���t want social media. What I want from you is traditional PR!���

���What do you understand by traditional PR?��� we ask.

���Well, more traditional, you know, classical PR!���

You can guess our response.

���There is no such thing anymore, it���s all social media now!���

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Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

You can check all the options on how to buy the book at��www.globalprbook.com

or follow all the news at��https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalPrRevolution/��or��https://twitter.com/BeharPRBook

THE ���CREATIVE LIAR��� NOTION: BOUND FOR EXTINCTION, TOO

Unfortunately, in many countries, PR as an industry and profession has a negative connotation for the general public.
���This is only PR!��� people might say, using the phrase as a euphemism for lying and deception.
Several years ago, I was in a cab in New York City. The driver, an immigrant from the Indian subcontinent, asked me, ���What���s your job, sir?���
���I am in business,��� I said.
���What business exactly? What���s your job?��� he insisted.
���Public relations,��� I said, yielding.
Then he turned around and said, ���Oh, so you are a creative liar!���
This is probably the most accurate expression of the bad connotation of our profession worldwide: a good PR expert is a creative liar.
This perception implies that, on the one hand, you misrepresent the facts, but on the other hand, you do that in the most creative way possible.
If the PR industry suffers from this negative reputation, it is because many people associate our profession with politicians and business people who use various contrivances and tricks to conceal or whitewash their flaws and wrongdoings.
Nevertheless, the perception of the PR expert as a ���creative liar��� is going to die over the next few years. It will dissolve as a notion in the public mindset, because liars simply cannot exist in modern PR life.
The moment a person lies somewhere (online), ten others are going to show up to expose the lie, wherever it might be, on any social media platform.
Regardless of this forecast, however, we still must take into account the fact that many people used to lack a decent understanding of our profession, and many still do.

��

Excerpt from Maxim Behar's New book The Global PR Revolution, published by Allworth Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

You can check all the options how to buy the book at��www.globalprbook.com

or follow all the news at https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalPrRevolution/ or https://twitter.com/BeharPRBook