Being seen is the easy bit

Recently, I found myself having a surprisingly heated conversation about emergency alerts. It started with the wildfire warning that went off on millions of phones across the UK. Around the same time, domestic abuse organisations used the attention around the alert to remind people that these alarms can expose hidden phones, something a survivor might be keeping without an abusive partner knowing.

The person I was talking to didn't particularly like that. Their argument was essentially: what's the point of an emergency alert if we're going to warn people that it's coming? Doesn't that undermine the whole process?

At one point, the comparison was made to Just Stop Oil. Another cause inserting itself into something, inconveniencing everyone else and generating publicity in the process. I didn't see it that way.

What I found interesting from a PR perspective wasn't really the debate over whether there should have been more advance warning. It was that this wasn't an argument they'd come up with because the wildfire alert was suddenly in the news.

Domestic abuse charities have been warning for years that emergency alerts can expose hidden phones. Suddenly, an alert sounding on millions of phones had made an issue they'd already been talking about nationally relevant.

In PR, we call that newsjacking. It's a term I've never particularly loved, because it makes the whole thing sound a bit opportunistic: find a big story, work out how to get your client into it, get them some coverage. And done badly, that's exactly what it is.

But this was the opposite. They already had something relevant to say, and the news cycle simply created the moment for people to hear it. And I think that distinction matters.

They already had something relevant to say, and the news cycle simply created the moment for people to hear it.

There can sometimes be a temptation with thought leadership to see a big story dominating the news and immediately ask, what's our take?

Sometimes there is one, and sometimes there really isn't. Good thought leadership doesn't mean having the quickest opinion on every story remotely connected to your sector. If anything, doing that over and over again can have the opposite effect. If you comment on everything, people will eventually stop associating you with anything.

I think the more interesting question is whether you have a reason to be in that particular conversation. It's something we think about a lot at Profile. Our job isn't just to make someone findable, but to also make them worth finding.

Getting coverage for a client is important, but it's only a part of the job. I've seen before how easy it can sometimes become for PR to become about coverage for coverage's sake. But without a bigger purpose behind it, it can feel a little aimless. You got the article, great, but what did it actually do?

Getting coverage for a client is important, but it's only a part of the job

When we're building an executive's profile, we're thinking about what that visibility actually needs to do for them. Maybe it's about helping prospective clients trust them before they've even been in the room together; maybe they want to become known for a particular issue in their industry, attract talent, or ultimately bring in more opportunities for the business.

That's what we mean at Profile when we talk about making someone not just findable, but worth finding. And once you start looking at it that way, what counts as good coverage changes too.

For example, there's an understandable temptation to see national coverage as the ultimate prize. Sometimes it absolutely is, and as a PR professional whose roots are in media, I can say not a single one of us forgets our first national hit for a client.

But if the people you actually need to influence are reading a particular trade publication every week, I'd much rather have a client appearing there consistently with something useful to say than popping up once in a national title on something that has very little to do with what they want to be known for.

I think clients can sometimes underestimate how valuable that consistency is. If you're part of the same industry conversations again and again, people start to associate you with that issue. Eventually, when it comes up, you're already someone people expect to hear from. That's gold dust if those are the people who might buy from you, work with you, recommend you or open the next door.

I think clients can sometimes underestimate how valuable that consistency is. If you're part of the same industry conversations again and again, people start to associate you with that issue.

It also means we're not looking for every possible opportunity to get a client's name into the news. Sometimes that right thing is to jump on a story because a client has spent years developing exactly the expertise people suddenly want to hear. Other times, it's about consistently building their position around an issue before it becomes part of a more mainstream conversation. And sometimes, however much attention a story is getting, the right call is to leave it alone because they simply don't have anything useful to add.

The domestic abuse organisations didn't need to manufacture a connection to the emergency alert, because they already had one. The news cycle simply gave more people a reason to listen. That's the kind of visibility I think is worth building. Not coverage for the sake of being seen, but a profile that actually goes somewhere.